On July 13, 2026, President Trump fired the two remaining Democratic commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) — Chairman Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland. This was not an isolated incident but one piece of a much larger puzzle: with less than four months until the November midterm elections, the White House is embedding federal power into every layer of state election administration with unprecedented intensity.
From voting rules to voter data, from judicial investigations to the postal system — the multiple fronts of this campaign are advancing simultaneously.
This article is primarily compiled from a USA Today deep-dive report translated by Consular Chat (领事闲谈/Lingshi Xiantan), a Weibo-based commentary account. All judgments and citations are attributed to their original sources.
The Hollowing of a Key Institution — The EAC
The EAC was created by Congress after the contested 2000 Bush–Gore election as an independent bipartisan agency tasked with helping states improve election administration — not federalizing elections. Its core functions include: distributing federal election funds, maintaining the national mail voter registration form, testing and certifying voting systems, providing guidance to state and local election officials, and assisting with the promotion of mail-in voting during the pandemic.
After Trump fired Hicks and Hovland, Republican commissioner Christie McCormick resigned — leaving all four commissioner seats vacant. The White House statement said the president "reserves the right to remove personnel who may not fully align with the critical mission of securing America's elections."
You can only "secure election integrity" by first dismantling the independent oversight body tasked with it. It is like demolishing the fire station and then declaring the fire risk eliminated.
Three Parallel Prongs — Executive Orders, Judicial Action, and Legislative Offensives
Trump's electoral control campaign runs along three parallel tracks:
Executive Orders
On March 31, Trump issued an executive order attempting to create a federal-level U.S. citizenship list identifying eligible voters in each state. Another order directed the U.S. Postal Service to mail ballots only to verified voters. A separate order tightening mail-in voting rules has been blocked by a federal judge.
Judicial–Law Enforcement Path
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon has announced that federal monitors will be dispatched to primary elections in 15 jurisdictions. Dhillon sent a memorandum to election officials in all 50 states, warning that "knowingly allowing non-citizens to vote is a crime." She publicly accused two-thirds of election officials of "concealing" voter rolls. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has sued at least 29 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to hand over voter data — but has lost most of these cases.
In February, the FBI raided the Georgia Secretary of State's office, seizing 2020 election records. Around the same time, Trump urged Republicans to "take over voting" in "at least 15 places."
Legislative Path
The Save America Act would require proof of citizenship for federal voter registration, photo ID to vote, and strict limits on mail-in voting. Blocked in the Senate by Democratic opposition and the 60-vote filibuster rule, Trump subsequently stated that he would not sign a housing affordability bill unless it included these election provisions.
State Resistance and Judicial Brakes
This federalization offensive has met resistance on two fronts.
Judicial resistance. Federal judges have ruled that Trump lacks the authority to create a federal-level national citizenship or voter roll. Voting rights organizations have sued the Justice Department, alleging that it is unconstitutionally stockpiling "the confidential voter data of millions of Americans" to build a national voter database "for surveillance and voter purges."
State resistance. At least 16 states have voluntarily complied with demands for voter data, but others have sued the Justice Department. Gabriel Sterling, a former senior Republican election official in Georgia, noted that out of 1.11 million ballots cast in the June runoff, only 23 "discrepancies" were found — the claim that voter fraud is widespread lacks evidence.
Data from NYU's Brennan Center shows that the Justice Department has sued 29 states and D.C. for voter rolls, but has lost most cases. David Axelrod, founder of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, remarked that "every signal is flashing red."
Protection or Control — The Boundaries of Institutional Power
From an institutional analysis perspective, Trump's chain of actions reveals a clear pattern: every step is taken in the name of "preventing fraud," and every step in practice concentrates election administration authority away from states and independent agencies and toward the federal executive branch.
The critics' concern is not so much whether these measures will uncover genuine fraud — the evidence already shows that fraud is extremely rare — but that they create a power structure ripe for abuse. When the federal government has access to the voter data of the entire country, can decide which ballots are worth sending, and can dispatch investigators to specific jurisdictions during an election — who holds these powers, and under what standards they are exercised, is more worth asking about than fraud itself.
"Firing all remaining EAC commissioners just months before the 2026 midterm elections is an extraordinary move, and the administration must explain itself immediately."
But the fundamental problem is this: when independent agency commissioners can be removed by the president at will, when investigators can act on "suspicion of fraud" rather than "evidence of fraud," the institution itself can no longer provide effective checks and balances.
The 2026 midterm elections will ultimately be decided — as Senator Schumer said — in the hands of the American people. But that depends on whether they still have a chance to vote within a framework that has not already been calibrated by executive power.