President Donald Trump fired the two remaining Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission on Friday, leaving the bipartisan federal body with no commissioners months before the 2026 midterm elections. Republican member Christy McCormick resigned separately, and the fourth Republican seat had already been vacant since earlier this year.
The move effectively empties the four-member commission created by Congress in 2002 to help state and local officials run elections, distribute federal grants, and oversee the testing and certification of voting systems nationwide.
The White House confirmed the action and framed it as an exercise of executive authority backed by the Supreme Court. In a statement, the administration 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." The White House cited the recent "Slaughter decision" as its legal basis, a ruling that expanded presidential power to dismiss members of independent agency boards.
The two fired commissioners, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, were both selected by congressional Democrats. Hicks had been appointed by President Barack Obama. Hovland, notably, was originally appointed by Trump himself during his first term.
Both men learned of their removal by email. The notification was signed by Morgan DeWitt Snow, deputy director of presidential personnel in the Executive Office of the President, as first reported by VoteBeat. The language was blunt and brief.
The New York Post obtained the text of the removal email sent by the White House Presidential Personnel Office:
"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."
McCormick, the Republican commissioner appointed by Obama, resigned on her own. Former Republican commissioner Donald Palmer had already left his post voluntarily earlier this year. That means all four seats, two Democratic, two Republican, as required by the Help America Vote Act, now sit empty.
The legal foundation for the removals is a 6-3 Supreme Court decision handed down June 29. The ruling held that Trump acted lawfully in firing members of independent agencies, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing that presidents cannot be saddled with subordinates "with whom he cannot work."
Trump himself celebrated the decision on social media, calling it "the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years." The administration has treated the ruling as a landmark win, applying it swiftly across the federal bureaucracy.
The EAC firings are the latest in a string of personnel actions since Trump returned to office. The administration has removed or sidelined hundreds of top agency officials and civil servants since January 20. In one earlier case, Trump sent Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub a removal letter on January 31, 2025, terminating her "effective immediately." Weintraub, who had publicly called Trump's voter fraud claims "baseless" in 2019, pushed back on social media, writing: "There's a legal way to replace FEC commissioners, this isn't it."
Not every firing has gone unchallenged in the courts. The Supreme Court itself blocked Trump's removal of Federal Reserve board member Lisa Cook in a narrower 5-4 ruling, drawing a distinction between certain agency structures. But the broader Slaughter decision gave the White House the green light it needed for bodies like the EAC.
The Election Assistance Commission was created under the Help America Vote Act, a bipartisan law signed by President George W. Bush in 2002. It requires two Democratic and two Republican members, all nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The commission distributes federal grants to state and local election offices, oversees testing of voting systems, and maintains the national voter registration form.
That last responsibility put the EAC directly at odds with the Trump administration. In March 2025, Trump issued a sweeping executive order on U.S. elections that urged the national voter registration form be updated to require documentation of U.S. citizenship. The EAC declined to make the change.
A federal judge later blocked Trump's March 2025 executive order entirely, ruling that it exceeded presidential authority because the Constitution grants elections management and oversight to Congress and the states. The administration has indicated it will appeal that ruling.
The second White House statement on the EAC firings cast the broader effort in administrative terms:
"The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections."
Whether that infrastructure can function without any commissioners at the EAC remains an open question. The commission's grant-distribution and voting-system certification roles depend on having seated members.
Congressional Democrats wasted no time framing the firings as an assault on election integrity. Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Joe Morelle issued a joint statement, as reported by Just The News:
"President Trump is trying to dismantle yet another independent guardrail of our democracy designed to keep elections fair and secure."
That framing assumes the EAC was, in fact, keeping elections fair and secure, a claim the administration plainly disputes. The White House's position is that commissioners who resist the president's election-security priorities are obstacles, not guardrails.
The pattern has been consistent since Trump took office in January. Officials who publicly opposed or slow-walked the administration's agenda have been shown the door. The firing of the Joint Chiefs chairman earlier this year followed a similar logic: the president expects alignment from the people who serve at his pleasure, and the Supreme Court has now confirmed that expectation carries legal force across a wider range of agencies than many in Washington assumed.
The immediate practical effect may be limited. State and local election officials run their own elections. The EAC does not count votes, design ballots, or staff polling places. Its role is administrative support, grants, standards, and testing.
But "limited" is not "zero." With no commissioners, the EAC cannot formally act. Federal grants that help small counties upgrade aging voting equipment could stall. Certification of new voting systems could be delayed. And the national voter registration form, the very document at the center of the citizenship-documentation fight, sits in bureaucratic limbo.
Whether Trump plans to nominate replacement commissioners or leave the seats vacant is unclear. The White House has not said. Under the Help America Vote Act, any new members would require Senate confirmation, and the bipartisan composition requirement means the president cannot simply pack the body with allies.
The open questions are real. But the core principle the administration is asserting is straightforward: a president elected to secure American elections should not have to work through commissioners who refuse to act on that mandate. The Supreme Court agreed. The EAC's empty chairs are the result.
Washington spent decades building a maze of independent commissions insulated from the voters who elect presidents. Now one president, armed with a Supreme Court ruling, is testing how many of those walls still stand. The answer, so far: fewer than the permanent class expected.