Donald Trump has fired the last three members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the sole federal agency dedicated to election administration, just months before the 2026 US midterm elections. The three commissioners were removed in different ways: the sole Republican appointee resigned, while the two Democratic appointees received termination notices via email from the White House presidential personnel office.

The EAC, created under the Help America Vote Act, functions as a national clearinghouse for election administration information, certifies voting systems, accredits testing laboratories, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. It does not directly run elections.

This unprecedented action has sparked accusations that Trump is attempting to "rig" the upcoming elections. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic US Senate minority leader, described the move as a "brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast," emphasizing that the administration is gutting an independent agency critical to certifying voting systems and helping election officials run secure elections.

Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, stated that Trump "knows that in November voters will reject everything he stands for." Senator Mark Warner of Virginia called the purge concerning and demanded an immediate explanation. Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes, accused the administration of manufacturing disruption for election officials nationwide, warning that the move undermines the integrity of nonpartisan election administration.

The terminations come amid ongoing efforts by Trump and his administration to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump also continues to promote the Save America Act, a proposal that would impose new restrictions on voting.

The White House has not issued an immediate comment on the terminations.

Sources