Donald Trump ousts election commission members in latest push to reshape
US voting process
[July 11, 2026]
By BILL BARROW
President Donald Trump has ousted members of a bipartisan federal
election commission that resisted his efforts to require would-be voters
to document their U.S. citizenship before registering.
The White House on Friday confirmed the executive action against members
of the Election Assistance Commission, which distributes federal grants
to states, oversees the testing of voting systems and maintains the
national voter registration form.
Though the move likely won't have major effects on the November
midterms, it's the latest instance of the Republican president trying to
exert White House influence over how U.S. elections are conducted, and
it's the first test of his newly expanded presidential power after the
Supreme Court ruled recently that the president can fire members of
independent agency boards without cause.
“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,” said a White House statement to AP.
The president removed the four-seat commission's two Democratic members,
Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. The panel's Republican member,
Christy McCormick resigned. Former Republican commissioner Donald Palmer
already had left his post voluntarily earlier this year. The changes
were first reported by VoteBeat, a news outlet that covers elections and
voting across the U.S.
Trump has repeatedly tried to reshape voting regulations, even though
the U.S. Constitution grants control of elections to the states and not
the president. Citing that separation of powers, courtshaveblocked most
of Trump's two executive orders that sought to reshape voting. Trump has
also launched an investigation of his 2020 loss, which he continues to
falsely insist was due to fraud, and this week his administration
threatened states if they did not try to purge what federal officials
believe are noncitizens from their voter rolls.
Still, Trump has largely been powerless to change election processes
through executive fiat and David Becker, a former Department of Justice
attorney who runs the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said
his purge of the EAC wouldn't alter that.
“This doesn't really change anything about how our elections will be
run, and how states are successfully ensuring secure, convenient, safe
elections,” Becker wrote on the social media site BlueSky Friday
morning.
Critics accuse Trump of damaging voters' trust
On Capitol Hill, the leading Democrats with election oversight
responsibility said Trump, rather than bolstering U.S. election
integrity, is further politicizing the voting process.
“President Trump is trying to dismantle yet another independent
guardrail of our democracy designed to keep elections fair and secure,”
said Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, and Rep. Joe Morelle, D-New York.
“Purging commissioners just months before the midterm elections and
further gutting support for our state and local elections officials is a
blatant part of his plan to politicize our elections and enable more
unlawful and dangerous election interference.”
Padilla is the ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, and Morelle
is ranking member of the House Administration Committee.
The lawmakers noted that the Supreme Court's conservative majority
enabled Trump's move with its decision to “upend decades of executive
power to appease the President.”
Staff at the Election Assistance Commission did not immediately respond
Friday to a request for comment on the agency's operations moving
forward.
While the White House statement did not offer a specific reason for
Trump's action, the commission has previously declined to change the
national voter registration form to require documentation of an
applicant's U.S. citizenship, as Trump's urged in a sweeping March 2025
executive order on U.S. elections. Though the form itself does not
require citizenship documents, voter registration materials from the
agency do state clearly that it already is illegal to falsely claim U.S.
citizenship to vote.
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President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in flight on Air Force
One after landing at U.S. Air Force Base at RAF Mildenhall, in
Suffolk, Eastern England, Wednesday, July 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex
Brandon)
A federal judge blocked the order, ruling it exceeded the
president's authority since the U.S. Constitution grants authority
over elections management and oversight to Congress and the states.
The administration has indicated it will appeal.
Trump hasn't said whether he'll pick new members
It was not clear whether Trump planned to nominate new members
immediately or leave the positions vacant — a move that, months
ahead of midterm elections, could prevent the agency from
distributing new grants to state or local elections offices and
perhaps complicate its role in overseeing testing and certification
of voting systems around the country.
“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 White House said.
Congress created the commission as part of the Help America Vote
Act, a bipartisan law signed by Republican President George W. Bush
in 2002. The act requires the commission to include two Democrats
and two Republicans, nominated by the president and confirmed by the
Senate. Hicks and McCormick were appointed by President Barack
Obama. Trump appointed Hovland during his first presidency.
According to VoteBeat, Hicks and Hovland were notified of their
removal by an email signed by Morgan DeWitt Snow, the deputy
director of presidential personnel in the Executive Office of the
President.
More court fights are always possible
Hicks and Hovland could challenge their dismissals, but that
ultimately could require the Supreme Court to revisit two decisions
it just issued on the president's power over independent agencies.
The court ruled 6-3 last month in the case of former Federal Trade
Commission member Rebecca Slaughter that Trump had wide executive
authority to fire political appointees of independent executive
agencies. Trump had fired Slaughter without cause despite a
provision of federal law that required a reason and a nearly
century-old Supreme Court precedent insulating independent agency
heads from presidential whims.
The court's six conservatives said that the previous restrictions on
presidential prerogatives violated the Constitution's separation of
powers. The logic extends to other agencies, including the National
Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the
Consumer Product Safety Commission, where Trump also has fired board
members.
In the separate case of Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, whom
Trump had tried to fire, a 5-4 majority deviated from the Slaughter
decision and ruled that the president could not fire central bank
governors without cause. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
Brett Kavanaugh sided with the court's three liberals in the Cook
case. They justified their exception to their Slaughter reasoning by
citing the central bank's unique structure as congressionally
chartered but independent, quasi-private institution whose
“appearance of independence is key to the Federal Reserve’s design”
and its role in setting monetary policy that shapes the U.S. and
world economy.
Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
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