You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

With Midterms Looming, Trump Completes Purge of Election Assistance Commission

HeadlineJul 10, 2026

President Trump has forced out the last remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan independent agency tasked with certifying voting systems and helping local election officials. On Thursday, the White House fired Democratic commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland; a third commissioner, Republican Christy McCormick, resigned. The committee’s remaining member, Republican Donald Palmer, stepped down in April to join the Heritage Foundation. Trump’s dismantling of the Election Assistance Commission comes less than four months before midterm elections; it follows last month’s Supreme Court ruling granting the president more power to fire members of ⁠independent agencies.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top