President Trump terminated all remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission on Thursday night, clearing the four-member bipartisan body of every sitting commissioner just months before the 2026 midterm elections. Two Democratic commissioners received terse termination emails. The lone Republican was allowed to resign.
The move leaves the EAC, the independent federal agency Congress created to help states run elections and certify voting systems, with zero commissioners and no capacity to take official action until the White House nominates and the Senate confirms replacements.
Just the News reported that Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland were notified by email, while Republican commissioner Christy McCormick was permitted to resign. A fourth Republican commissioner had already left voluntarily earlier this year.
The message sent to the Democratic commissioners was brief and direct. As reported by Reuters and cited in the Just the News account, the email read:
"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 New York Post reported that the emails were sent by the White House Presidential Personnel Office. The firings hit both Obama-era and Trump-era appointees: Hovland was originally a Trump nominee, while Hicks was an Obama appointee. McCormick, also a Trump appointee, was given the courtesy of a resignation rather than a cold email.
That distinction, a resignation for the Republican, a termination notice for the Democrats, drew immediate attention. But the practical result was the same for all three: they are out, and the commission is empty.
The terminations did not happen in a legal vacuum. They followed a landmark Supreme Court ruling issued June 29 that upheld the president's broad authority to fire officials at independent agencies without cause. The decision came down 6, 3, and it has already reshaped the landscape of presidential power over the federal bureaucracy.
The ruling's ripple effects showed up almost immediately elsewhere in government. A former Democratic commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Jocelyn Samuels, dropped her lawsuit challenging her own dismissal by Trump in the wake of the decision. Samuels stated the ruling "leaves me without a viable path forward to continue contesting my termination." Her firing and that of fellow commissioner Charlotte Burrows were unprecedented in the EEOC's history, which stretches back to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The administration has also moved aggressively on other fronts. The DOJ, under Trump appointees, has sued 29 states over voter roll integrity, citing hundreds of thousands of dead voters still listed on registration databases. That effort reflects the same administration posture now visible at the EAC: a willingness to use executive authority to reshape election-related institutions.
The Election Assistance Commission was established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Its core functions include serving as a national clearinghouse for election administration information and certifying voting systems used across the country. By law, the commission is bipartisan, no more than two of its four members can come from the same party.
With zero commissioners now seated, the agency cannot take any official action. It cannot certify new voting equipment. It cannot issue guidance to state and local election officials. It cannot convene.
Replacing the commissioners requires presidential nominations based on recommendations from Republican and Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, followed by Senate confirmation. No timeline for that process has been announced.
The question of whether the EAC will be reconstituted before November 2026 is now an open one. And that question matters to every county clerk, every state election director, and every voter who relies on the systems the EAC is supposed to oversee.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer framed the firings in blunt terms. As reported by Breitbart, Schumer said:
"Firing every remaining member of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission months before the midterms is a brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast."
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia demanded answers from the White House. "Removing every remaining commissioner just months before the 2026 midterm elections is an extraordinary step that demands an immediate explanation from the administration," Warner said, as quoted in the New York Post's reporting.
Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice warned that "until bipartisan replacements are confirmed, the agency cannot lawfully make any decisions that affect how Americans vote."
Those criticisms follow a familiar pattern. Democrats have objected loudly to each of Trump's moves to exercise personnel authority over independent agencies, from the EEOC firings to the attempted removal of FEC Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub earlier this year. In that case, the Washington Examiner reported that Weintraub received a White House letter stating she was "hereby removed as a Member of the Federal Election Commission, effective immediately." She refused to leave, arguing the removal was illegal. The White House stood firm.
The EAC terminations fit within a wider campaign by the administration to restructure the federal workforce. Trump fired more than a dozen inspectors general within his first week back in office. The EEOC, under its new Trump-aligned majority, has already released a regulatory agenda that includes ending 40-year-old workforce demographic data collection requirements and rescinding English-only workplace guidelines.
Democratic EEOC Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal warned that "the proposed changes weaken civil rights protections for workers and undermine the agency's investigative and enforcement efforts." But the Supreme Court's June 29 ruling gave the administration a powerful legal foundation to continue down this road.
The executive branch's willingness to use its personnel authority extends well beyond commissions. The DOJ recently moved to remove an Atlanta judge from a Georgia election case, citing alleged conflicts of interest, another example of the administration asserting control where it believes institutional actors have overstepped.
And the dynamic isn't limited to the executive branch pushing people out. Some officials have left under their own clouds. A Florida Democratic congresswoman filed for re-election days before quitting under ethics pressure, a reminder that accountability gaps exist on both sides of the aisle, though the mechanisms differ.
The Trump administration has not publicly stated its rationale for emptying the EAC. No official explanation accompanied the termination emails beyond the two-sentence notice. Whether the White House intends to nominate replacements quickly, or allow the commission to remain dormant through the midterm cycle, is unknown.
It is also unclear whether any of the terminated commissioners plan to challenge their removal in court. The Supreme Court's June ruling would make such a challenge difficult, but not necessarily impossible depending on the specific statutory language governing EAC appointments.
The broader legal question, whether Congress can insulate any independent agency head from presidential removal, now appears largely settled in the president's favor. That reality will shape not just the EAC but every independent commission in Washington for years to come.
Critics will frame the EAC terminations as an assault on election integrity. But the commission's track record hardly inspires confidence that its absence will be felt the way its defenders claim. The EAC has long been a low-profile body with limited enforcement power, and its certification functions, while important, are procedural, not political.
The deeper issue is simpler. The president has the authority to staff the executive branch. The Supreme Court confirmed it. And when commissioners serve at the pleasure of the president, they serve at his pleasure, regardless of party affiliation or the calendar.
Democrats spent years building a federal bureaucracy designed to resist presidential control. Now that the Court has sided with the Constitution's plain structure, they're calling it a crisis. The crisis isn't that the president used his authority. It's that they assumed he never would.
