On Thursday night, President Trump fired Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland by email and pressured Republican commissioner Christy McCormick to resign, leaving the agency with zero commissioners for the first time in its history. Congress created the EAC in 2002 after the 2000 election exposed failures in U.S. voting infrastructure. It's the only federal agency devoted entirely to election administration: it certifies voting equipment, sets standards for voting systems, distributes federal election grants to states, and maintains the national voter registration form. Without at least three commissioners, the agency can't vote on official actions or set policy. Replacing them requires presidential nominations and Senate confirmation, and Trump hasn't announced any nominees.

The Trump administration says a June Supreme Court ruling settles the question: the president can remove officials at independent agencies who aren't aligned with executive priorities.

The president can now fire independent agency heads. In late June 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Slaughter that the president has authority to remove leaders of independent federal agencies, overturning decades of precedent that protected such officials from at-will removal. The White House cited that ruling when asked about the EAC firings.

The White House framed it as election security. An unnamed White House official said the president "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."

2. But the Agency Was Built to Resist Exactly This (Democrats, Voting Rights Groups)

Critics say this is a pre-midterm power grab against a body Congress specifically designed to be immune to exactly this kind of move.

Congress wrote the bipartisan requirement into law. The EAC by statute can have no more than two commissioners from the same party, and needs three votes to act — a design intended to prevent any administration from controlling election certification standards. Michael Waldman, CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, said the agency was "deliberately structured...as a bipartisan agency."

Without leadership, the agency can't update anything. EAC staff can still disburse existing grant funds and certify voting systems under current standards, but the agency can't establish new programs or update voting system guidelines. Dustin Czarny, elections commissioner for Onondaga County, New York, warned: "If this is a prolonged absence… then training is going to come to a halt."

Democratic secretaries of state called it dangerous. Cisco Aguilar, Nevada Secretary of State and chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said "it will again fall on Secretaries of State and other election administrators to fill the gap." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called it "a brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast."

3. And Whether the Ruling Even Covers the EAC Is Contested (Election Law Scholars)

The legal argument isn't as clean as the White House is claiming — and the bipartisan structure Congress mandated for the EAC may matter in court.

The Supreme Court did carve out exceptions. The court decided Trump v. Slaughter alongside a companion case, Trump v. Cook. In Cook, the court voted 5-4 to preserve removal protections for Federal Reserve governors, citing the Fed's long history of independence from the executive. Courts haven't settled whether a body like the EAC — which Congress explicitly structured to be bipartisan and independent — falls under the Slaughter rule or the Cook carve-out.

Rick Hasen called it an open question. Hasen, a UCLA election law professor, said it's "an open question about the EAC and the [Federal Election Commission]" whether the Slaughter ruling actually authorizes these removals. Legal challenges are likely, but courts would need to rule quickly for any injunction to matter before November.

Where This Lands

The White House says the Slaughter ruling settles it: independent agency heads serve at the president's pleasure, and the EAC is no different. Democrats and state election officials say that ignores both the bipartisan design Congress wrote into HAVA and the practical damage to election infrastructure with midterms months away. Legal scholars say the Cook carve-out means the court hasn't actually answered whether congressionally mandated bipartisan bodies fall under the same rule as the FTC — and courts will have to decide it. What nobody disputes is that the EAC is currently frozen: no commissioners, no path to action, and no replacements announced.

Sources