Trump Removes Election Assistance Commission Heads
POLICY WIRE — WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday terminated the remaining three members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an ...
POLICY WIRE — WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday terminated the remaining three members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), an independent federal body that supports election administration nationwide, the White House confirmed.
The terminations followed a Supreme Court decision last week that granted the president increased authority to dismiss members of independent agencies. The move also aligns with President Trump’s advocacy for greater federal involvement in voting processes, which are traditionally managed by states, as midterm elections approach in November.
The three commissioners, Thomas Hicks, Benjamin Hovland, and Christy McCormick, were forced out through different means. One Republican appointee resigned, while the two Democratic appointees were fired via an email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office, according to one person familiar with the decision and two other individuals briefed on the terminations. The fourth commissioner had departed in April.
The termination email, seen by Reuters, stated: 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 Election Assistance Commission, established by Congress in 2002 after the contested 2000 presidential election, serves as a “national clearinghouse of information on election administration,” accredits testing laboratories, certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail voter registration form, according to the commission’s website. The four commissioners are appointed by the president, require Senate confirmation, and are mandated to be evenly split between two Democrats and two Republicans. The three commissioners who were removed had all been unanimously confirmed by the Senate.
Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California and House Representative Joe Morelle of New York, both Democrats, issued a joint statement asserting that the president “continues to double down on his efforts to erode trust in our elections.” The legislators described the purging of commissioners months before the midterm elections as a blatant part of his plan to politicize our elections and enable more unlawful and dangerous election interference.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, in a statement, characterized the decision as “irresponsible and dangerous.” Fontes later told MS Now that while much of the EAC’s work is typically conducted “in the offseason,” and the hiring and training of poll workers is already in progress, the absence of a stable or reliably independent agency for potential last-minute issues is a concern.
The terminations occurred amid broader efforts by the Trump administration regarding election procedures. President Trump has advocated for changes to vote-by-mail requirements ahead of the midterm elections. He previously called a Supreme Court ruling, which permitted Mississippi to process mail-in ballots for several days post-election day, “detrimental to honest elections.” The administration has encountered legal obstacles in its attempts to obtain voter roll information from multiple states, with federal judges denying several requests.
The Associated Press reported that the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division sent letters on Tuesday to election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, indicating that they could face criminal charges if they knowingly allow nonvoters to cast ballots or remain on voter rolls. Separately, President Trump reiterated a pledge on social media Friday not to sign a bipartisan housing bill into law until the Senate passes his proposed Save America Act. This act would mandate photo identification for voting in federal elections, require proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration, and compel states to provide their voter registration rolls to the federal government.
Democrats and voting rights groups contend that the Save America Act would disenfranchise Americans lacking ready access to passports and birth certificates, while addressing noncitizen voting, which research indicates is exceedingly rare. Senate Republicans have reportedly informed the Trump administration that the Save America Act lacks the necessary votes, with some balking at the bill’s proposal to eliminate universal mail-in voting. Some analysts have suggested that Republican voters were more enthusiastic about mail-in voting than Democrats before Trump’s entry into national politics, and he won two of the three U.S. elections featuring the highest percentage of mail-in or absentee ballots.
President Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. The U.S. electoral system is a decentralized and complex landscape involving approximately 10,000 other votes for various local and state races, in addition to congressional and presidential elections. It remains unclear how the 2020 presidential vote totals could be manipulated without affecting other ballots, which differ by county and are often processed by separate voting technology systems, without incident or disruption.
In January, the FBI searched the Fulton County election hub in Georgia, seizing hundreds of boxes of ballots and other documents from the 2020 election. However, a federal judge recently rejected a government subpoena for the names and personal contact information of Fulton County election employees and voluntary poll workers, deeming it “untethered to any reasonable need.”
It’s currently unclear how President Trump intends to proceed with the commission or what impact the terminations will have on the career staff supporting the agency.
