The White House spent several months examining options to sidestep the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and employ emergency authorities to force changes to voting equipment and related national guidance, four people familiar with the matter said. Those conversations preceded President Donald Trump’s recent move to remove the commission’s leadership.
Some administration officials had grown impatient with what they viewed as the EAC’s slow pace in updating guidance on voting machines for states. In addition, certain White House figures wanted the commission to add a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the national mail voter registration form and to advance other election-related priorities of the administration, the sources said.
Democratic lawmakers criticized the removals as an effort to expand executive influence over U.S. elections - which are administered by the states - and to weaken an independent body responsible for aspects of election integrity at a politically sensitive time, ahead of November’s midterm contests that will determine control of Congress. President Trump removed the two Democratic commissioners serving on the bipartisan agency and allowed its lone Republican commissioner to resign. The commission’s fourth member had already left in April.
It was not immediately clear why the president chose this moment to force the departures or whether replacements will be named. The commission remains functional in limited respects, but without a quorum it is barred from taking up new business, including potential changes to voting procedures or updates to the national mail voter registration form.
When asked about the internal discussions on bypassing the commission, the White House said in a statement on Friday that "the administration from the start has been working across all agencies and local partners to safeguard elections from fraud and abuse, and investing in a strong infrastructure to sustain that mission especially in the midterm elections."
The administration has pressed Congress to enact nationwide voting changes and has argued that some systems require upgrades, while the president continues to assert that the 2020 election was stolen from him - a claim that has been widely disputed. In a separate statement confirming the commissioners’ removals, the White House cited a June Supreme Court decision that it said granted the president broader authority to remove members of independent agencies. The statement added, "(The president) reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, condemned the action as a "brazen attempt to seize control of our elections before a single vote is cast" in the midterms, and said, "He is gutting the independent agency that certifies voting systems and helps election officials run secure elections."
Discussions of a national emergency and federal task force
As early as last fall, officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recommended declaring a national emergency and establishing a federal task force that could compel states to address vulnerabilities in voting systems without routing changes through the EAC, according to four people familiar with the recommendation. The ODNI did not respond to a request for comment.
At the time of that review, ODNI was concluding a probe into voting machines it had seized from Puerto Rico. Two sources said ODNI officials identified flaws in those Puerto Rico machines and believed similar flaws could exist elsewhere. Experts have said that Puerto Rico, which does not vote in presidential elections, trails the states in adopting the most recent voting system guidance.
The ODNI report was never published and the proposal to declare a national emergency was not implemented, but dissatisfaction with the EAC persisted, the sources said. During the same timeframe, officials from the Department of Homeland Security, ODNI and the White House met with the EAC’s leaders to relay concerns, including so-called flaws the officials believed could have produced abnormalities in the 2020 election - assertions that have been widely debunked.
The EAC’s statutory role includes setting guidelines for states on voting machine systems. Internally, some Trump administration officials argued that certain states were operating voting systems with outdated software and felt the commission was moving too slowly to force updates, three people familiar with the discussions said.
Election administration specialists have noted that the commission often advances work deliberately because voting systems are complex, technology is evolving, and any policy change requires substantial public input. Matt Weil, vice president of governance at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former commission staffer, said in an interview that "the voting system guidelines haven’t been updated too frequently because the process takes a long time. So yes, there is slowness, but that is not a bug, that’s a feature of the system."
Commission operations and funding
Although the commission currently lacks a quorum to undertake new policy actions, the remaining EAC staff can continue core functions: testing and certifying equipment, publishing research and reports, and distributing federal grant funding, according to two people familiar with those processes.
Congress authorized $45 million for the EAC in fiscal year 2026 to support grants to states seeking to enhance election systems. Since 2018, the commission has distributed more than $1.4 billion for election administration, based on figures from the Congressional Research Service.
At the center of these developments are competing views of the pace and scope appropriate for federal action on election technology and registration processes. The White House and some federal agencies considered a more assertive route - including emergency powers - to accelerate changes, while critics viewed the removal of commissioners as an attempt to exert greater federal control over election certification and administration. With the EAC operating without a quorum, its capacity to implement any new guidance or standards is constrained heading into a politically consequential midterm cycle.