Published by TrenBuzz.com | July 9, 2026 | BREAKING ELECTION EMERGENCY
Key Points at a Glance – Trump Fires Every Election Assistance Commission Member
- Trump fired Democratic EAC commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland by email on July 9, 2026, after Republican Christy McCormick resigned and Republican Donald Palmer had already left earlier this year.
- The Election Assistance Commission now has zero commissioners, zero quorum, and zero ability to act on anything, with 117 days until November 3.
- The dismissals follow the Supreme Court’s Slaughter decision, which gave the president broad authority to fire leaders of independent agencies. The White House cited Slaughter explicitly in its termination emails.
- The EAC certifies every voting machine used in the United States. Without commissioners, that certification process is frozen. States waiting on new equipment certification cannot receive it.
- The EAC also oversees the national voter registration form, administers hundreds of millions in federal election grants, and provides security guidance to local election officials.
- Fair Fight Action’s Max Flugrath called it a “desperate” move by a president trying to implement the SAVE Act’s voter ID requirements through agency action after failing to pass them through Congress.
Election Assistance Commission Dismissals: The Timeline Nobody Expected
The EAC has existed since Congress created it through the Help America Vote Act in 2002, after the contested 2000 election exposed deep flaws in how states run elections. It survived two Trump terms, multiple partisan fights over election reform, and years of vacancy-driven paralysis. It did not survive July 9, 2026.
The practical cascade from these dismissals is immediate and severe. Any state running an election in 2026 using equipment that needs new certification cannot receive it. Any state relying on the EAC’s security guidance for protecting voting systems from cyberattacks has lost the only federal point of contact with authority to issue that guidance. Any nonprofit or state that applied for federal election grants now has no body authorized to disburse that money.
The EAC’s Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, the national standard against which every voting machine in America is tested, cannot be updated. Labs accredited to test voting equipment are accredited by a commission that no longer exists.
The Slaughter Decision Made This Possible
Trump’s ability to fire the EAC commissioners rests entirely on the Supreme Court’s June 2026 ruling in Trump v. Slaughter, which vastly expanded presidential authority to remove leaders of independent agencies. The Court exempted the Federal Reserve, but the EAC was not similarly protected.
UCLA election law professor Rick Hasen told Votebeat it remains unresolved whether the EAC’s bipartisan statutory structure might give it separate legal protection from the Slaughter ruling. That legal ambiguity is likely to produce litigation. But courts do not move faster than elections, and November 3 does not wait for circuit court schedules.
One former EAC official told CNN: “The EAC has been a dead man walking since the Slaughter decision. Today’s firings make this even more clear.”
What This Means for Every Voter in America Before November 3
The most consequential immediate effect is on voting system certification. Many states require EAC certification before authorizing purchase or use of any voting equipment. With no commissioners, that pipeline is frozen.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who has been fighting Trump’s election moves all year, called the firings “dead set on causing chaos for our election officials.” But the operational problem is nonpartisan. Republican election administrators in Texas, Florida, and Georgia rely on EAC guidance, EAC-certified machines, and EAC grant funding every bit as much as Democratic-run offices in Michigan or Pennsylvania.
Tim Lim, a Democratic strategist on election issues, said: “Trump couldn’t rig the elections through the SAVE Act, so he’s now moving unilaterally to subvert the 2026 elections starting with sacking the bipartisan EAC commissioners.”
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