The Trump administration has forced out the three remaining members of an independent, bipartisan commission that supports states in administering their elections, the White House confirmed on Thursday. The move comes as President Trump seeks to cast doubt on the outcome of the upcoming midterms and impose control over how ballots are counted. Mr. Trump terminated, effective immediately, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland, two members selected by congressional Democrats to serve on the Election Assistance Commission, and accepted the resignation of a Republican member, Christy McCormick.
The board has no other remaining members, as its fourth commissioner resigned this spring.
An unidentified White House official issued a statement saying that Mr. Trump reserved the right to remove individuals who “may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.” The White House official cast the dismissals as part of the federal government’s strategy to work across agencies to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse.
The official pointed to the recent decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Trump had the authority to fire most independent regulators for any reason, ushering in a vast expansion of presidential power. Mr. Trump had hailed the decision as “the Greatest Increase in Presidential Power in the last 100 years.”
Mr. Trump has been laying the groundwork for months to claim that Republicans would face a tough midterm election, not because of the broadly unpopular war in Iran and plummeting approval ratings on the economy, but because the country’s election system is fraudulent.
Mr. Trump, who has falsely claimed that the election he lost in 2020 was “rigged,” has been pushing legislation that would impose stringent voter identification requirements. He has called for significantly curtailing the use of mail-in ballots, which he has claimed without evidence that Democrats have used to cheat. (Mr. Trump voted by mail in a special election in Florida in March.)
The E.A.C., which was established in 2002, is a crucial guardrail for ensuring election security across the country. According to its website, it guides states in ensuring they meet voting requirements, oversees testing and certification of voting systems and disperses funding to help states meet requirements. It serves as a national clearinghouse for information on election administration and maintains the national mail voter registration form established by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
Last year, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that calls on the Election Assistance Commission to require people to show government-issued proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and directs state or local officials to record and verify the information. It also seeks to require states to count ballots by Election Day. A judge permanently blocked the order, saying the president exceeded his authority.
Michael Waldman, the president and chief executive of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, in a statement called the terminations “deeply concerning in light of President Trump’s relentless efforts to try to interfere in elections.”