President Trump on Thursday fired the last three members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, disabling the bipartisan federal agency that certifies voting machines and maintains the national mail voter-registration form less than four months before the November midterms.
The move leaves the four-seat commission with no commissioners, meaning it cannot take official action until the Senate confirms replacements. It follows a March 2025 executive order in which Trump directed the agency to rewrite the federal voter-registration form to require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, and a Supreme Court decision late last month that expanded the president's power to fire leaders of independent agencies.
How they were pushed out
The two Democratic appointees, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, were notified by email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Reuters and Votebeat reported. "On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service," the email said, signed by Morgan DeWitt Snow, deputy director of presidential personnel. Christy McCormick, the Republican, was allowed to resign, according to three sources who spoke to Votebeat and additional people briefed on the terminations who spoke to Reuters. A fourth commissioner, Republican Donald Palmer, resigned in April to join the Heritage Foundation. All three of the departing commissioners had been unanimously confirmed by the Senate.
The removal-power ruling
The firings come days after the Supreme Court, in Trump v. Slaughter, overturned decades of precedent and held that the president may remove leaders of independent agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission. In a separate late-June case involving the Federal Reserve, the court carved out a narrower rule for Fed governors, citing the historical independence of central banking. Whether bipartisan election commissions fall on either side of that line has not been tested. "It’s an open question about the EAC and the [Federal Election Commission]," Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA, told Votebeat. "The question has not been tested as to whether political entities created with bipartisan balance might be subject to another exception." Earlier this year, Trump fired Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic Federal Election Commission member serving in holdover status; Weintraub did not sue.
What the agency does
Congress created the Election Assistance Commission through the 2002 Help America Vote Act to distribute federal election funds, certify voting systems, and maintain the national mail voter-registration form. By statute, its four seats must be evenly split between the two parties, with commissioners nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. In March 2025, Trump ordered the commission to rewrite the registration form to require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship — a change from the current practice, in which voters in almost all states attest to citizenship under penalty of perjury. The Trump-aligned law firm America First Legal had petitioned for the rewrite; the commission received hundreds of thousands of public comments but never held a vote.
A White House official, defending the terminations, said the president "reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America's elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted," citing the Supreme Court's ruling as precedent. No right-leaning national outlet had published independent coverage of the firings by Thursday evening; the administration's own statement, resting on the president's constitutional right of removal and the new precedent, stands as the sole articulation of the Republican rationale in Thursday's reporting.
Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said in a social-media post the terminations should "concern every American" and called the terminations "an extraordinary step that demands an immediate explanation from the administration" and warned of "political interference in the institutions that support our elections." Trump can nominate replacements — no more than two from either party — but each will still require Senate confirmation, leaving the agency dark as states begin certifying voting systems and mailing registration materials for the fall.