The president fires everyone on the only federal agency dedicated to elections, then cites a Supreme Court ruling that gave him permission to do it.

"The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places."

— Donald Trump, February 2026

On a Thursday in early July, two Democratic commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission received an email from the White House. It was four sentences long. The second sentence informed them they had been fired.

Benjamin Hovland was visiting an election office in Missouri when his phone buzzed. He was there to learn about new measures put in place to protect election workers from harassment. The email came from Morgan DeWitt Snow, deputy director of presidential personnel in the Executive Office of the President: "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."

Thomas Hicks, the commission's chairman and a member since 2014, got the same message. Republican Commissioner Christy McCormick was allowed to resign instead. A fourth commissioner, Republican Donald Palmer, had already left in April to join the Heritage Foundation.

The result: the only federal agency devoted exclusively to election administration now has zero commissioners. It cannot take official action. It cannot vote on policy changes. It cannot certify voting systems or update the national voter registration form. With approximately four months until the midterm elections, the body that was supposed to help keep those elections running smoothly has been reduced to a vacant building.

Translation: Trump did not just want to reshape election rules. He wanted to remove anyone who might stand in the way.

The EAC was created by Congress in 2002 through the Help America Vote Act, in the aftermath of the 2000 election and the hanging chad controversy in Florida. Its mandate was deliberately modest: distribute federal election funds, maintain the national mail voter registration form, test and certify voting machines, and offer guidance to state and local election officials. It was designed to be bipartisan, with four members nominated by the president at the recommendation of congressional leadership and confirmed by the Senate. No more than two could come from the same party.

This bipartisanship was not an accident. It was the structural guardrail. The idea was that whatever administration held power, the agency that oversaw the technical infrastructure of American elections would require cross-party agreement before making significant changes.

Trump's first attempt to control the EAC came through an executive order in March 2025 directing the commission to change the federal voter registration form to require documentary proof of citizenship. The EAC opened a public comment period and received hundreds of thousands of submissions. It had not yet voted on the change when the commissioners were fired. A federal judge had also blocked the order on procedural grounds.

Now there is no one left on the commission to vote either way.

The legal mechanism for the purge arrived two weeks before the firings. On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court decided Trump v. Slaughter, overturning Humphrey's Executor v. United States, a 91-year-old precedent that had protected the independence of federal commissions from presidential removal. The Court held that "for cause" removal protections for independent agency commissioners were unconstitutional and violated the separation of powers.

Justice Sotomayor dissented sharply, warning that the decision "reshapes our Government. Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President's hands." She listed examples: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The White House explicitly cited Slaughter in defending the EAC firings. A White House official told reporters: "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. The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so."

The connection was not incidental. The timing was not accidental. The Supreme Court handed the president a constitutional tool; he used it on the agency that manages how Americans register to vote.

But Slaughter addressed the Federal Trade Commission. The EAC is different. It was created by statute with explicit bipartisan balance requirements. Whether the Supreme Court's new removal-power doctrine applies to election agencies structured around mandatory party splits remains untested.

"It's an open question about the EAC and the Federal Election Commission," said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA. "The question has not been tested as to whether political entities created with bipartisan balance might be subject to another exception."

Hasen warned that Trump could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC staff to implement changes anyway. "He could try to direct the commissioner-less EAC to do his bidding, for example by stating that the EAC must amend the federal voter registration form that states must accept for federal elections to include documentary proof of citizenship."

Earlier this year, Trump fired Ellen Weintraub, a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Election Commission who had been serving in holdover status after her term expired. Weintraub did not sue. If Hicks or Hovland challenge their removal, their case could become the first direct test of whether Slaughter extends to federal election agencies.

While that litigation plays out, the EAC remains frozen. The Brennan Center for Justice called the firings "deeply concerning in light of President Trump's relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections." Public Citizen called it a "pathetic attempt to sow doubt in our elections." Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes called it "irresponsible and dangerous."

These are the words people use when something unprecedented happens and they are trying to find language for how wrong it feels.

The practical consequences extend beyond symbolism. The EAC oversees the federal testing and certification program for voting systems. It accredits laboratories and certifies whether machines meet the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. Many states rely on this certification before allowing voting equipment to be purchased or deployed. The commission also maintains the national mail voter registration form, which states use as their template under the National Voter Registration Act.

The EAC has been without a quorum before. For years, vacancies and partisan paralysis rendered the agency unable to perform major parts of its work. It regained stability only after the Senate confirmed new commissioners in 2019. But those previous freezes were the result of normal dysfunction: terms expiring, confirmations stalling, politics grinding to a halt.

This is not dysfunction. This is demolition. The difference between an agency that cannot act because no one filled its seats and an agency that cannot act because the president emptied them is the difference between a vacant lot and a razed building.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed that staffers would "fight this power grab at every turn." Senator Mark Warner said the move "should concern every American, regardless of party." But legislative pushback has not stopped anything so far, and the SAVE America Act, which would require photo ID for all voters and bar most mail-in ballots, remains stalled in Congress not because of Democratic opposition but because Republican hardliners are demanding even more restrictive versions.

Meanwhile, the Postmaster General announced that the USPS will no longer deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to provide sensitive voter data to the federal government. The DOJ sent letters warning state election officials they could face criminal charges if noncitizens appear on voter rolls. And the FBI raided the Fulton County Elections Center in Georgia on January 28, seizing ballots and voting equipment.

The EAC purge fits into a pattern that has been building for over a year. Every institution designed to create distance between the White House and the administration of elections has been targeted. First the courts, then the postal service, then the Justice Department, then the commission that makes sure voting machines actually work.

Trump said in February that Republicans should take over voting in at least 15 places. He is not talking metaphorically. The EAC is the latest place where he is trying to prove he can.

The question is not whether Congress can restore the commission. The question is whether there is time to restore it before the elections arrive.