OMITTED

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Trump removes final Election Assistance Commission members before midterms

9 sources · updated 2026-07-11
Left 0% Center 0% Right 100%
0 left · 0 center · 1 right

What happened

On Thursday, July 9, 2026, months before the November 2026 midterm elections, the White House ended the service of the last three sitting members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin W. Hovland received termination notices effective immediately, while Republican commissioner Christy McCormick resigned after the White House sought her departure; Republican commissioner Don Palmer had left earlier in 2026. The EAC is a four-seat bipartisan federal agency created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 after problems in the 2000 presidential election, with Senate-confirmed commissioners and duties including voting-system certification, accrediting testing laboratories, distributing election grants, maintaining the national mail voter-registration form, and advising state and local election officials. With all seats vacant, the agency has no governing board for formal commission votes, and any replacements must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. A White House official cited the Supreme Court’s June 29, 2026 Slaughter decision, which broadened presidential power to remove officials at independent federal agencies.
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

One concrete information gap runs both ways. NBC is the only outlet here to quantify the EAC’s recent money role, saying it distributed “more than $1 billion in grants for election security” from 2018 to 2025; none of the right-leaning accounts include that figure. On the other side, the New York Post and Newsmax both include Trump’s celebratory description of the Supreme Court ruling as “the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years,” while NBC, NPR and the Guardian pieces do not quote that line, though NPR and Guardian do discuss the Slaughter ruling. The language diverges sharply. The Guardian says Trump was accused of trying to “rig” the midterms and calls the move a “power grab”; NBC says the firings are “hamstringing” the agency; NPR says Trump “cleans house.” Breitbart frames the same action as Trump having “shaken up” a commission that was “dragging its feet on addressing non-citizen voting.” Newsmax uses the plainer “removed the final three members,” while the New York Post says “terminated” and foregrounds a “landmark Supreme Court ruling expanded his powers.” There is also a factual split over who was fired versus who resigned. NBC, NPR, Guardian, Newsmax and Breitbart all say the two Democrats, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, were dismissed, while Republican Christy McCormick resigned or was asked to resign. The New York Post instead says Hicks and McCormick “were fired via email” and Hovland “was forced to resign.” That conflict is not resolved. The clearest emphasis gap is the frame. Left-leaning stories lead with institutional disruption and criticism: “hamstringing,” “swift condemnation,” “chaos,” and “rig.” Right-leaning stories lead with legal authority and election-security rationale: Slaughter, “securing America’s elections,” “every legal vote,” and non-citizen voting. The unasked question across the board is concrete: will any commissioner challenge the removals in court, and has any court said Slaughter applies to the EAC specifically?
Bottom line

The same three departures are presented either as a midterm threat to a bipartisan agency or as a post-Slaughter personnel move to secure “every legal vote.” The unresolved hard fact is basic: the New York Post’s account of who was fired and who resigned conflicts with NBC, NPR, Guardian, Newsmax and Breitbart.

The Left View
Left-leaning sources frame the removals as an attack on a bipartisan election-administration safeguard at a sensitive moment before the midterms. NBC, NPR, and the Guardian emphasize that the EAC was designed to be independent and bipartisan, and they highlight warnings from Democrats, election officials, and voting-rights groups that the move will leave state and local administrators with less support. The strongest language comes from critics quoted in these outlets: Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes called the action “irresponsible and dangerous,” Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center called it “deeply concerning,” and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer described it as a “brazen attempt” to seize control of elections. These sources connect the firings to Trump’s broader election agenda, including his 2025 executive order seeking proof-of-citizenship requirements on the federal voter-registration form, major provisions of which courts blocked as exceeding presidential authority. They also stress practical risks: without commissioners, the EAC cannot set new policy or formally adapt its work, which former commissioner Hovland characterized as a “death-of-1,000-cuts” threat to already strained election administration.
The Right View
Right-leaning sources frame the move primarily through presidential authority and election-security policy. The New York Post and Newsmax emphasize the Supreme Court’s Slaughter ruling as a “landmark” expansion of Trump’s power to remove independent-agency officials, and they quote the White House position that the president may remove people who are not “totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.” Newsmax presents the result as raising operational questions until new commissioners are confirmed, while also noting the administration’s stated focus on fraud prevention, proof-of-citizenship rules, mail-voting limits, and other election-security measures. Breitbart uses the most supportive framing, saying Trump “shaken up” a commission that had “dragged its feet on addressing non-citizen voting.” These accounts treat the removals less as institutional sabotage and more as an assertion of executive control over an agency involved in election infrastructure and voter-registration procedures.
Our Take (balanced)
The strongest left-side argument is that removing every remaining commissioner from a congressionally created bipartisan election body shortly before the midterms predictably weakens a federal support structure for state and local election officials. Its best evidence is institutional: the EAC needs commissioners for formal action, its members were Senate-confirmed, replacements require another Senate process, and the move follows other Trump efforts to reshape election rules, including a proof-of-citizenship directive partly blocked by courts. The strongest right-side argument is that the president has a legitimate claim to remove independent-agency officials after the Slaughter decision and to seek alignment on election-security priorities in an agency that affects voting-system certification and federal registration forms. Its best evidence is legal and administrative: the White House cited a recent Supreme Court ruling expanding removal power and described the action as part of ensuring “every legal vote is counted.” The central unresolved tension is whether presidential accountability for election-security policy can extend this far into a bipartisan election-administration agency without undermining the independence and cross-party structure Congress built into it.

9 sources

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