President Donald Trump has removed the two Democratic members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, leaving the federal agency charged with helping state and local officials administer elections without commissioners just months before the November midterms.
The White House confirmed the removals Friday, after Trump dismissed Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland from the four-seat commission. The commission’s Republican member, Christy McCormick, resigned, while former Republican commissioner Donald Palmer had already left earlier this year. The result is an agency without the bipartisan board that Congress designed to oversee federal election grants, voting-system testing, certification programs, and the national mail voter registration form.
The firings put a small but important election agency at the center of Trump’s wider effort to assert federal power over how elections are run. The Constitution gives states primary authority over election administration, with Congress holding authority over federal elections. Trump has repeatedly tried to push national voting changes by executive action, including requirements tied to proof of citizenship and mail voting. Courts have blocked most of those efforts, finding that the president exceeded his authority.
The Election Assistance Commission had resisted one of Trump’s central demands: changing the national voter registration form to require people registering to vote to provide documents proving U.S. citizenship. The form already states that only U.S. citizens may register to vote and that falsely claiming citizenship is illegal. Trump’s March 2026 executive order sought new federal mechanisms for citizenship verification, voter-list checks, and mail-ballot rules, but a federal judge blocked key parts of the order.
The commission’s role is technical, but its work affects voters across the country. It maintains the national mail voter registration form, supports accessibility and election security work, distributes Help America Vote Act funds, and helps set voluntary voting system guidelines used by states. Without commissioners, Reuters reported, the agency can continue routine operations but cannot take up new business, including changes to voting procedures or the national mail voter registration form.
That matters because the administration’s unresolved agenda still runs through the EAC. Reuters reported that White House officials had spent months looking for ways to bypass the agency and use emergency powers to force changes to voting machines before Trump removed its leaders. According to Reuters, officials discussed a proposal from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to declare a national emergency and create a federal task force that could pressure states to address alleged vulnerabilities in voting systems without going through the commission.
The White House has framed the firings as part of its election security agenda. In a statement to the Associated Press, the administration said the president has authority to remove officials who are not aligned with the task of securing elections and ensuring legal votes are counted. The White House also cited the Supreme Court’s recent Slaughter decision, which expanded presidential power to remove members of independent agency boards.
That ruling has immediate consequences beyond the EAC. The Court’s conservative majority recently said Trump had broad authority to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission, weakening older legal protections that had insulated some independent agencies from direct presidential control. AP reported that Trump’s removal of EAC members is the first major test of that newly expanded authority in the election administration context.
The EAC was created by Congress in the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the bipartisan law passed after the 2000 election exposed major problems in voting systems and election administration. Under HAVA, the commission is supposed to have four members, no more than two from the same political party. Commissioners are nominated by the president based on recommendations from congressional leaders and confirmed by the Senate. The EAC’s own description of HAVA says commissioners may continue serving after their terms expire until successors take office.
That design was meant to keep the agency bipartisan and stable across administrations. Trump’s removals test whether that structure can survive a Supreme Court that is increasingly receptive to presidential control over independent agencies.
The immediate effect on the midterms may be limited if career staff can continue existing programs. But the longer-term risk is that the agency could be frozen at a time when voting rules, registration systems, election equipment, and federal pressure on state officials are already under strain. The lack of commissioners could delay new grants, complicate guidance, or prevent the agency from acting on urgent disputes before November.
The communities most likely to feel the consequences of federal voting changes are the same groups that have historically faced barriers to registration and ballot access. Documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements can be especially burdensome for naturalized citizens, low-income voters, students, elderly voters, people with disabilities, rural voters, and voters whose names or documents do not match neatly across government records. Election officials could also face new pressure if the administration tries to connect voter registration, citizenship databases, and federal enforcement tools.
The firings also come as the Justice Department has pressed states over voter rolls and citizenship checks. AP reported that Trump’s administration threatened states this week if they did not try to purge people federal officials believe are noncitizens from voter rolls. That pressure, paired with the removal of EAC commissioners, signals a continuing effort to shift power over elections away from state and local administrators and toward the White House.
Several questions remain unanswered. It is not clear whether Hicks or Hovland will challenge their dismissals in court. It is not clear whether Trump will nominate new commissioners quickly, leave the agency vacant, or seek replacements more willing to approve changes to the voter registration form. It is also unclear whether the administration will revive emergency-power proposals aimed at voting equipment or state election systems.
For now, an agency created to help states administer elections after one of the most disputed elections in modern U.S. history has been stripped of its commissioners ahead of another high-stakes national vote. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the danger is not abstract: “He is gutting the independent agency that certifies voting systems and helps election officials run secure elections.”
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