Trump Fires All Election Assistance Commission Members Ahead of Midterms

On July 9, 2026, President Trump removed the three remaining members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the bipartisan federal agency created after the 2000 election to support state election administration. Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland were notified by email from the presidential personnel office that their positions were terminated "effective immediately," while Republican commissioner Christy McCormick was permitted to resign, according to Votebeat. A fourth seat was already vacant, leaving the four-member commission with no sitting commissioners.

Because EAC commissioners can be replaced only through presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, with no more than two from one party, the agency is now unable to take official action — including certifying voting systems and updating guidance for states — months before the 2026 midterm elections. The removals followed the Supreme Court's late-June decision in Trump v. Slaughter expanding the president's power to remove leaders of independent agencies, and election-law scholars quoted in reporting note it is unsettled whether that doctrine extends to bipartisan election commissions.

No commissioner had publicly announced a legal challenge as of the reporting; a suit contesting the removals could become an early test of whether the new removal-power precedent reaches agencies structured around bipartisan balance.