{"id":542470,"date":"2026-07-10T09:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/542470\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T09:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T09:12:09","slug":"trump-fires-last-three-members-of-election-commission-amid-fears-of-elections-chaos-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/542470\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump fires last three members of election commission amid fears of elections \u2018chaos\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> has terminated the three remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials nationwide just a few months before the midterm elections.<\/p>\n

The remaining three commissioners of the four-member bipartisan commission \u2060were forced out on Thursday, the \u200bWhite House confirmed. <\/p>\n

The one Republican appointee<\/a> resigned and the other \u2060two, Democratic appointees<\/a> were notified of their terminations via email from \u200bthe White House presidential personnel office.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn \u200cbehalf of President \u200cDonald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position \u200cas Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,\u201d the email, seen by Reuters, said.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

The Election Assistance Commission serves as a \u201cnational clearing house of information on election \u200cadministration\u201d, accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national mail-voter registration form developed by the National \u200bVoter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission\u2019s website. <\/p>\n

The terminations follow Trump and top administration officials\u2019 advocacy to change vote-by-mail requirements and investigations into the 2020 election outcome, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is \u2060irresponsible and dangerous that this administration remains dead set on \u200bcausing chaos for \u200bour election officials across this \u200bcountry,\u201d Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes said in a \u200bThursday statement. \u201cThis \u200cmove undermines the integrity \u200bof non-partisan \u200belection administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u200bfourth commissioner departed the commission in April. The terminations follow the recent Supreme Court decision that granted the president more power to fire members of independent agencies, and a push \u2060by Trump for more federal intervention in voting processes, traditionally the purview of the states, as midterm elections approach in November. <\/p>\n

The election commission was established by Congress in 2002 through the Help America Vote Act. The four commissioners are appointed by the president, are required \u200cto be evenly split with two Democrats \u2060and two Republicans, and ultimately need to be confirmed by the US Senate.<\/p>\n

The three remaining commissioners who were forced out, Thomas Hicks, Benjamin Hovland and Christy McCormick, were all unanimously confirmed by the Senate.<\/p>\n

The 2002 law states the president can appoint \u200creplacements to the commission, but it is unclear how Trump will move ahead with the commission.<\/p>\n

Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said in a Thursday social media post the \u200bterminations should \u201cconcern every American, regardless of party\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemoving every remaining commissioner just months before the 2026 midterm elections \u200bis an extraordinary step that demands an immediate explanation from the administration and raises profound concerns about political interference in the institutions that support our elections,\u201d Warner said. \u2013 Guardian, Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has terminated the three remaining members of the independent, federal commission that assists election administration officials…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14843,969,42,43,16621,40,38,41,39,20966,115],"class_list":["post-542470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-democratic-party","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-republican-party","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trump-presidency","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}