Trump Pushes Out Remaining Members of Bipartisan Election Commission Ahead of Midterms

This article first appeared at ProPublica.
President Donald Trump has pushed out the three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, leaving the bipartisan agency in limbo as he rushes to remake how elections are run before this year’s midterms.
Trump fired Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, the Democrats on the commission, multiple sources familiar with the matter told ProPublica, which was the first to report the actions on its social media accounts. Christy McCormick, the Republican, was allowed to resign, the sources said.
The commission’s unprecedented dismantling alarmed voter advocacy groups and Democratic state election officials, who called the move “reckless and irresponsible.”
“The EAC plays a critical role in supporting state and local election officials,” Cisco Aguilar, Nevada’s secretary of state and chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said in a statement, “and it will again fall on Secretaries of State and other election administrators to fill the gap.”
A White House official wouldn’t confirm the specific actions taken but said in a statement to ProPublica that 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.”
“The Administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections,” the official said.
Hicks and McCormick did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Hovland declined to comment on his firing.
The commission was established in 2003 to set standards for state voting systems and to provide funding for upgrades.
Its four-member board is designed to be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, all nominated by the president at the recommendation of congressional leadership and confirmed by the Senate. The fourth commissioner, Don Palmer, a Republican, resigned in April. By dismissing the commission’s remaining members, Trump can try to put forward replacements who may be more amenable to his demands.
In March 2025, Trump issued a sweeping executive order that directed the EAC to change the national voter registration form — which serves as the template for the forms in each state — to require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote. Currently, voters in almost all states attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury, but they are not required to provide proof.
The Trump-aligned law firm America First Legal had petitioned the EAC to change the form. The EAC posted a notice seeking comments, receiving hundreds of thousands of them in response, but had not yet held a vote.
The Bipartisan Policy Center, a group that advocates on election issues, said the departures are a “significant loss for one of the federal government’s few institutions explicitly designed around bipartisan governance.”
The commission has been plagued by partisan infighting and ineffectiveness, as well as chronic vacancies and a lack of funding. It’s made some progress in recent years, however, passing new standards for voting machines and creating new resources and recommendations for election officials. Often, the commission’s decisions were unanimous despite its partisan split.
First and Sako Gone but never forgotten!
There is hope
An Encouraging Encounter With Real Americans
Today i want to give you some encouraging news about the state of the heartland. Well, actually New Jersey, but you got a problem with that?
But I did something kind of different yesterday — which has prevented me from producing a usual analytical Substack post — and it was actually a very uplifting experience.
So hi, I’m Paul Krugman. What i did yesterday was participate in jury selection in Mercer County, New Jersey, where i am still a legal resident.
That is something I’ve done before: back in 2020 I spent 16 weeks on a grand jury. It was done remotely, because it was the depths of Covid.

Facts Only

* President Donald Trump pushed out three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission.
* Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, Democrats on the commission, were fired.
* Christy McCormick, a Republican, was allowed to resign.
* Cisco Aguilar, Nevada’s secretary of state and chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, called the move “reckless and irresponsible.”
* A White House official stated the president reserves the right to remove individuals not aligned with securing elections.
* The commission was established in 2003 to set standards for state voting systems and provide funding for upgrades.
* Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 directing the EAC to change the national voter registration form to require proof of U.S. citizenship.
* America First Legal petitioned the EAC to change the registration form.
* The Bipartisan Policy Center called the departures a “significant loss for one of the federal government’s few institutions explicitly designed around bipartisan governance.”

Executive Summary

President Trump reportedly removed three remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, leaving the bipartisan agency in a transitional state while he sought to reform election processes before the upcoming midterms. Benjamin Hovland and Thomas Hicks, Democrats on the commission, were fired, while Republican Christy McCormick was allowed to resign. Voter advocacy groups and Democratic state election officials labeled this action as reckless and irresponsible. Officials stated that the Election Assistance Commission plays a critical role in supporting state and local election officials, meaning state and local administrators will need to fill the resulting gap. A White House official indicated the president reserves the right to remove individuals who may not align with securing elections. The commission was established in 2003 to set standards for voting systems and provide funding for upgrades. Further actions include an executive order issued by Trump in March 2025 directing the EAC to change the national voter registration form to require proof of U.S. citizenship.

Full Take

The narrative reveals a strategic effort to dismantle a bipartisan regulatory body, the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), under the guise of preparing for midterms. The actions—firing members and pushing sweeping administrative changes like mandatory citizenship proof on voter registration—suggest a prioritization of centralized control over institutional stability and established governance structures designed to ensure electoral fairness. The shift from a system that traditionally operated with bipartisan checks to one where presidential directives can swiftly remove appointments, coupled with efforts to mandate specific documentation for voting access, forces an examination of the tension between executive prerogative and the functional necessity of balanced administrative oversight. The stated intent to safeguard elections contrasts sharply with the mechanism used to achieve this—disrupting the commission's structure. This pattern echoes a broader theme where institutional roles designed for cross-partisan consensus are targeted when they impede executive objectives, raising questions about the long-term viability and impartiality of bodies tasked with ensuring democratic procedures. What are the consequences for procedural transparency when established structures intended to foster consensus are treated as malleable tools? What precedent is set when mandates targeting voter access are enforced through administrative restructuring rather than legislative process?

Sentinel — Human

Confidence

The text functions as a mix of hard political reporting on an agency and a personal reflective essay, indicating human editorial intervention rather than pure synthetic generation.

Signals Detected

Sentence length variance is noticeable; the shift in tone between the factual reporting and the concluding personal anecdote suggests human authorship.

The text shifts abruptly from high-level political/electoral analysis to an extremely personal, anecdotal conclusion, lacking the seamless, purely objective flow of pure machine generation.

The inclusion of a seemingly unrelated, informal, and highly specific personal story (Paul Krugman's jury selection experience) breaks any overarching synthetic structure.

The core reporting on the EAC firings and the executive order appears based on reported events, although attribution needs verification; the closing section strongly suggests personal commentary overlaying the news.

Human Indicators

The abrupt tonal shift from objective political reporting to a highly personal sign-off referencing a specific individual (Paul Krugman) and personal experience.

Use of colloquial phrasing ('you got a problem with that?') in the transitional section.