The White House fired the remaining members of the federal Election Assistance Commission on Thursday, leaving the small bipartisan agency that helps states run elections with zero commissioners four months before the November midterms.
There was no scandal, no stated cause, and no succession plan, which tells you the vacancy is not a side effect. It is the point.
What Actually Happened on Thursday
The commission had already been running short-handed. Republican commissioner Donald Palmer left earlier this year, and on Thursday the administration cleared out everyone still standing. NBC News reported that Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland were dismissed outright, while Republican Christy McCormick resigned her seat as the removals came down. All of them had been confirmed by the Senate unanimously, which is about as bipartisan as Washington gets.
The termination notices themselves were thin. According to Votebeat, the two Democratic commissioners received emails signed by a deputy director of presidential personnel, with no reason given for their removal. Hicks was serving as the commission’s chair.
That leaves the EAC with no commissioners at all. Under its founding statute, the agency cannot take official action without a quorum, and new members must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, with a partisan-balance requirement that prevents stacking it with one party. Until that happens, the commission is a building with the lights on and nobody home.
Why a Tiny Agency Matters More Than Its Size
The EAC is easy to overlook because it is not an enforcement body. Congress created it after the Florida recount debacle of 2000 to do the unglamorous plumbing of American elections: distribute federal election-security money, maintain the national voter registration form, test and certify the voting machines states rely on, and publish guidance for thousands of local election offices.
That plumbing is exactly what is now frozen. With no quorum, the commission cannot update voting-system standards, cannot alter the federal registration form, and cannot formally act on anything before November. NPR reported that the ousters hamstring the agency at the moment states are finalizing equipment, procedures, and voter-roll maintenance for the midterms.
There is a cynical read that cuts both ways here, and it is worth being honest about it. An empty EAC also cannot be weaponized. Some election lawyers have noted that a commission without members cannot be used by the administration to force changes to the federal voter form or certification standards before the election. That is true as far as it goes. But it mistakes a hostage situation for a stalemate. The president now controls when, whether, and with whom the agency comes back to life, and every month of vacancy is a month in which states get no certified guidance, no new security funding decisions, and no functioning federal partner.
The Pattern Is the Story
If this were an isolated personnel move, you could squint and call it housecleaning. It is not isolated. This administration has spent 18 months testing how far presidential removal power extends over agencies Congress deliberately built to be independent and bipartisan, and the Supreme Court’s recent decisions expanding that removal power have functioned as an invitation. UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen told Votebeat it remains an open legal question whether bodies designed around bipartisan balance, like the EAC and the Federal Election Commission, fall under any remaining exception.
The why here is structural, not personal. Hicks and Hovland were not accused of anything. The firings work the same way the administration’s earlier moves on election infrastructure worked: shift control of election machinery away from bipartisan, Senate-confirmed professionals and toward the White House personnel office. It is the same logic that drove the administration’s mass voter-roll review, which we covered when officials ran eligibility checks against 67 million voter records ahead of the midterm cycle. Take the referees off the field, and every close call defaults to the executive.
Democrats read it the same way. California Senator Alex Padilla and New York Representative Joe Morelle called the removals an attempt to dismantle another independent guardrail designed to keep elections fair, and framed it as part of a deliberate plan to politicize election administration before November.
What Happens Between Now and November
The practical fallout lands on the states. Election officials in both parties have leaned on the EAC for certification and security support since 2002, and they now head into a high-turnout federal election without it. Any voting-system update that needs federal certification is stuck. Any dispute over the federal registration form has no referee. The federal election-security grant money the commission administers sits in limbo.
The legal fight is coming, but slowly. Fired commissioners at other independent agencies have sued and mostly lost at the current Supreme Court, and there is little reason to expect a different outcome fast enough to matter before the midterms. Which means the real check is political: the Senate could refuse to confirm replacement commissioners who fail the independence test, and state election officials, many of them Republicans, could say publicly what they say privately about losing their federal partner in the middle of an election year.
Watch the nominations. If the White House sends up a bipartisan slate quickly, Thursday’s firings were a power play with an off-ramp. If the seats stay empty into the fall, the vacancy was the policy all along.