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President Trump’s decision to fire multiple members of a bipartisan election administration-focused commission is sparking concerns that the White House is looking to meddle ahead of the November midterms.
Trump fired the remaining two Democratic members on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), while allowing a separate Republican member to resign on Thursday — just a little more than a week after the Supreme Court determined the president has broad authority to fire members of independent boards previously seen as separate from the executive branch.
The ousters mark the latest example of Trump’s efforts to overhaul elections and groups that work to support them. The administration has sought to restrict voter registration, limit mail-in ballots, collect voter data, and relitigate the 2020 election, which Trump has baselessly claimed he won.
While experts note this week’s firings will likely have little impact this cycle, the move has drawn the ire of voting and democracy groups that warn of interference in future elections.
“I think it’s fair to say that’s troubling for probably a lot of election officials across the country that this happened, and I hope that Congress might try to address this,” Eric Fey, chair-elect of the EAC board of advisors, told The Hill in an interview after the firings.
Borne out of the Help America Vote Act, legislation passed in 2002 establishing new election administration standards, the EAC has operated in a largely supportive role to help localities and states carry out elections. It does not specifically count votes or administer elections itself.
The EAC, which is helmed by four Senate-confirmed commissioners, certifies voting technology, handles the national voter registration form and distributes federal grants to different states, among other responsibilities.
The administration’s interest in the EAC has not happened in a vacuum.
The Justice Department for months has taken various actions on voting, from demanding state voter rolls to plans to send election monitors to polls in at least six Democratic stronghold states.
Other agencies have also been drawn into the effort, with the U.S. Postal Service pushing for a rule paving the way for it to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots in states that haven’t turned over their roster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also recently come under fire for reportedly threatening to withhold terrorism grant funding for states they determine are not “protecting the integrity of American elections.”
And on the technology front, officials seized voting machines in Puerto Rico while Trump himself has touted conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, which was renamed Liberty Votes last year.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed some 80 lawsuits challenging the administration’s various actions.
“We’re witnessing a president who will take extreme measures to try to seize control our elections,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, in a statement. “He’s kneecapping the Election Assistance Commission, he’s weaponizing the Justice Department against voters, and he’s signing unconstitutional executive orders to lock people out of the ballot box.”
“This is no longer a pattern — it’s a strategy,” she added.
Other voting and elections groups like the League of Women Voters also slammed the move.
“The American people deserve elections administered by trusted professionals, not shaped by political interference,” League of Women Voters CEO Celina Stewart said in a statement responding to the firings.
“This is not a routine personnel decision — it is a dangerous escalation in the effort to weaken the safeguards that protect free and fair elections in the November midterms,” she added.
Trump has fired members of numerous boards and commissions that regulate everything from consumer safety to nuclear materials to mergers in major industries. All members are now at risk of being fired after a Supreme Court decision late last month ruled Trump has broad executive power to give them a boot, upholding the termination of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter.
“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, 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,” a White House official said in a statement.
“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,” the official added.
Experts, meanwhile, note that Trump’s firing of EAC commissioners is unlikely to have any serious impacts on election administration heading into November.
Mitchell Brown, a political science professor at Auburn University and a founding editor of the Journal of Election Administration Research & Practice, said that Trump’s firings were not particularly surprising while noting that states and localities run elections — not the federal government.
“The perplexing part of that, to me, is for a Republican president to want the federal government involved in things that are clearly states’ rights issues,” Brown said. “It sort of defies my understanding of how Republicans work and what they’re interested in and where they want the locus of power and authority to be.”
But officials warn there could be downstream consequences if the EAC continues to lack a quorum.
“The EAC has a relatively new program to certify electronic poll books, they were piloting the certification of voter registration databases and election night reporting software,” said Fey, who also serves as the Democratic director of elections for St. Louis County in Missouri.
“If we don’t get a quorum of commissioners, you know, for months or years, then it becomes a real problem for the administration of elections because we can’t update voting system certification standards,” he added. “And we can’t continue this program to test and certify other election administration software and hardware.”
Democracy advocates, however, say the public would be remiss not to see the warning signs with the EAC despite its limited role.
“Although the EAC doesn’t play a direct role in running elections, we must view this as part of a broader pattern of efforts to centralize control over election administration and tilt the playing field,” said Michael McNulty, director of policy for Issue One, in a statement.
“There should be no doubt in any American’s mind: the biggest threat to the integrity of the 2026 midterms is President Donald Trump,” he added. “This is not a partisan message, simply a factual one.”
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