Trump Purges Election Assistance Commission

The White House fired two Democratic Election Assistance Commission members Thursday afternoon, completely vacating the federal agency in charge of election management guidelines after the remaining Republican member resigned.

President Donald Trump’s move comes after a recent Supreme Court ruling that vastly expanded the president’s ability to fire independent government regulators. The court exempted the Federal Reserve, blocking Trump’s attempts to remove one of its governors, Lisa Cook.

On Thursday, a Trump official fired Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland — the panel’s two Democratic commissioners — via email, Votebeat reported. The third commissioner, Republican Christy McCormick, resigned afterward. A fourth commissioner, Republican Donald Palmer, had already left the agency earlier this year to join the Heritage Foundation.

“Trump couldn’t rig the elections through the SAVE Act, so he’s now moving unilaterally to subvert the 2026 elections starting with sacking the bipartisan EAC commissioners,” said Tim Lim, a Democratic strategist working on election administration issues. “Between the FBI surging into Fulton County and today’s action, it’s clear Donald Trump is determined to stop a free and fair election this November.”

Congress established the small federal agency through the Help America Vote Act after the tightly contested 2000 presidential election in order to provide best practices to state and municipal election officials, as well as to develop specifications for testing and certifying voting systems. The four-person, bipartisan panel issues voluntary guidance and holds no enforcement authority.

Republicans have tried — unsuccessfully — to eliminate the agency, the size of which former President Joe Biden doubled during his term. It now has just 65 employees after a wave of Trump cuts.

Other election officials and lawmakers have criticized the agency for not adequately advancing election security measures in the past, though the commission’s membership has been in flux throughout its existence. The EAC lacked a quorum for years — frozen in its abilities to update voting guidance — until the Senate confirmed new commissioners in 2019.

After the Supreme Court’s June ruling, it is still unclear whether the EAC would fall under the executive branch’s expanded ability to fire independent regulators. Trump’s termination of a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Election Commission earlier this year didn’t end in a lawsuit, leaving little precedent for this type of panel vacancy. The FEC has not had a quorum since April 2025 after two other commissioners, both Republicans, departed the six-person panel — freezing the campaign finance agency’s ability to issue guidance.

Thursday’s EAC firings could further endanger the government’s ability to make bipartisan election-related recommendations ahead of the midterms, particularly as Trump moves to aggressively reshape the way the country votes.

Democratic secretaries of state panned the dismissals, saying the White House has continually undermined nonpartisan election integrity and made it difficult for election officials to do their work.

“The EAC plays a critical role in supporting state and local election officials, and it will again fall on Secretaries of State and other election administrators to fill the gap,” said Cisco Aguilar, chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State.