The Election Assistance Commission had one job: help states run secure, accurate elections. Instead, it spent months actively resisting the most basic election integrity measure imaginable — requiring proof of citizenship on federal voter registration forms. So Trump fired them all. Every last one.
Both Democratic commissioners received the same terse email Friday: “On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately.” Republican commissioner Christy McCormick received a phone call and was asked to resign. The fourth commissioner had already left voluntarily earlier this year. As of Friday, the EAC has zero commissioners — and Trump is free to install new leadership that actually believes American elections should be decided by American citizens.
Chuck Schumer immediately called it a “brazen attempt to seize control of our elections.” This is the same Chuck Schumer who just publicly admitted his party plans to kill the filibuster and federalize election law the moment Democrats take back power. The same Schumer whose aligned groups pulled $6.4 million from Maine days before a rape allegation ended his party’s Senate candidate. The man lecturing America about election integrity is the one who had advance knowledge of a scandal and moved money in the dark while voters remained in the dark.
The nerve is genuinely staggering.
Here’s what Schumer and the rest of the Democratic outrage machine don’t want you to focus on: a documented non-citizen voted illegally in two separate American elections. Not allegedly — documented. And the EAC, rather than treating that as the urgent crisis it plainly is, has been dragging its feet on updating voter registration forms to require proof of citizenship. An agency funded by American taxpayers, tasked with securing American elections, actively obstructing the most obvious election security measure on the table with midterms months away.
The Supreme Court’s Slaughter decision gives the president broad authority to remove independent agency commissioners. Trump used it. That’s not a constitutional crisis. That’s the executive branch functioning exactly as designed.
The practical consequences are significant and immediate. Without commissioners, the EAC cannot distribute federal election funds, certify voting machines, or modify the national voter registration form on its own authority. That last point matters enormously — it means the current form stays in place until Trump installs new leadership that will update it to require citizenship verification.
Democrats will take this to court. They always do. But the legal foundation is solid, the precedent is established, and the urgency is real. The SAVE America Act remains stalled in the Senate because John Thune can’t find 51 votes in a 53-seat majority. While that fight continues, Trump is using every executive tool available to secure the 2026 midterms through other means.
The EAC resisted. Trump removed them.
That’s not seizing control of elections. That’s making sure only Americans decide them.
