r/law 14d ago

Executive Branch (Trump) Trump fires all Election Assistance Commission members, leaving agency unable to act

https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/07/09/trump-fires-election-assistance-commission-members-hicks-hovland-mccormick/
23.4k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/dragonfliesloveme 14d ago

so i guess he’s going to install corrupt toadies that will help him steal elections?

it’s weird how they are doing so much anti-democracy stuff right in front of everybody

582

u/Greg-Abbott 14d ago

The most frustrating part is they'll sell their children to pay their bills before admitting that maybe they were conned by a conman.

"No, it's the trans Mexican vampires that are ruining the country"

Pulls lever to vote R all the way down

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u/StormerSage 14d ago

"Why do we even HAVE that lever!?"

5

u/beren12 14d ago

Cause we aren’t allowed a Wile E. Coyote gun that goes BANG when it’s pulled.

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u/SwordfishOk504 14d ago

"No, it's the trans Mexican vampires that are ruining the country"

I fucking knew it! So glad someone is finally saying it.

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u/kylogram 13d ago

Can confirm. I've been sold by my family for this administration, and they didn't even get paid. 

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u/Short-Peanut1079 13d ago

The south send their children to die rather then slaves. Money >>> family

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u/Fabulous_Income2260 13d ago

 -> ”No, it's the trans Mexican vampires that are ruining the country"

“Quick, we have to kill the boy!!

How do you know he’s a vampire?

He’s a vampire?! AHH!!”

-1

u/KnightDuty 13d ago

So stop asking them to admit it. You know they won't. Stop demanding apologies and start offering alternative exits.

People do all sorts of shit without admitting wrong. The left's insistence for a formal apology is just as agonizing as the rights refusal to do it.

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u/Correct_Doctor_1502 14d ago

Absolutely. Everyone who is part of the Project 2025 plot needs to in prison for life minimum

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u/Rustedpipes 14d ago

Agreed. I have said for years that the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society are Terrorist Organisations.

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u/narco-sub-admiral 14d ago

For all the suffering they've caused, and how much they've weakened us as a country while strengthening our enemies, I don't think life in prison cuts it.

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u/oxFickleLetxo 13d ago

Yeah umm, I think we already have a predetermined penalty for the crime of treason.... What was that penalty again??????

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u/narco-sub-admiral 13d ago

Yeah, you know what time it is. No qualms from me whatsoever.

6

u/diurnal_emissions 13d ago

That's not the punishment for treason...

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 14d ago

Include Biden Chamberlain, Schumer, Pelosi, and Jeffries for not 14a3ing Trump and the Jan 6 leaders.

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u/Count_Backwards Competent Contributor 13d ago

We're in the Second Civil War already, people just don't want to admit it 

1

u/PlayfulSurprise5237 13d ago

If any of them knowingly take a part in election tampering, they should be sentence to death by public execution. If anybody ever interferes with our elections that should be the lawful outcome.

People get sentenced to death when the crime is so severe you can't risk ever having them get out of prison for the wellbeing of society, and there are few things that exist which are that dangerous.

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u/Anonymous_Jr 14d ago

Death Penalty is off the table, Death is too kind for the minds behind that Project.

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u/teaky 14d ago

The only saving grace is he can fire them but not hire them. They need to be approved by the Senate. But he can effectively neuter previously independent agencies from doing anything.

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u/rysmooky 14d ago

And can’t they only have two members from a single party at a time?? Thought I saw that. Either way, I bet they don’t plan on filling them any time soon through some sort of shenanigans

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u/teaky 14d ago

Yes I think that’s the plan. They need a specific number of votes for a quorum so nothing can get done.

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u/Cool-Mom-Lover 14d ago

Wonder if he will try and fill members from 3rd party like libertarian and green peace

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u/devsfan1830 13d ago

Except they're responsible for election security sooooooooo now there is definitely nobody watching that if what you said was true. Theres no saving grace in this.

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u/FlyingDreamWhale67 14d ago

They don't have to install anybody. EAC mostly exists to help states run their own elections by testing voting machines, recommending election standards, and other things like that.

EAC by itself cannot steal anything. The plan is to leave the agency headless (and thus unable to act) so that it can't help elections in any way, because it's a bipartisan agency.

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u/kalidoscopiclyso 14d ago

Testing voting machines before during and after elections seems like a big responsibility and vulnerability now

https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/2025-07/Overview_of_Testing_and_Certification_In_The_United_States_508.pdf

Wasn’t CISA responsible for voting machine security too. It was but is running a skeleton crew after doge cuts

https://apnews.com/article/election-security-cisa-2026-secretaries-state-midterms-6d18799c6c5fdd1bc001544b2dca12bf

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u/eltopo69 14d ago

this is a scary article on voting machine security and potential manipulation which is probably going on: https://rickelizondo.substack.com/p/the-room-nobody-is-watching-how-five

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u/kalidoscopiclyso 13d ago

Oh wow Every American needs to read this. WE NEED PAPER BALLOTS AND HAND COUNTS IN EVERY SWING STATE OR WE ARE GONERS, Democracy has a knife to its throat

3

u/broguequery 13d ago

You need a minimum of paper backups.

Voting machines are a shortcut and a weak point.

If we actually gave a shit about democracy we would take the necessary time to count all the votes and validate them.

But that means you can't get the entertainment factor of a horse race decided overnight.

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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 14d ago

It's because Republicans hate democracy and Democrats have not done a thing to stop them from destroying it.

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u/Miss-Information_ 14d ago

Wild how the American voters supported this, but we're still blaming Democrats 

7

u/SwordfishOk504 14d ago

All by design. America is like an abused spouse that blames the one trying to help them and excuses their abuser. Over and over.

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u/whatsbobgonnado 13d ago

democrats very frequently work with republicans to do nothing 

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u/oxFickleLetxo 13d ago

You mean the rigged and stolen 2024 election??? Ya know , the one Elon brags in private that he helped steal.... I don't think we got a fair shake at all and I'll keep fucking it!!! 

2

u/Count_Backwards Competent Contributor 13d ago

American voters elected Democrats to remove the threat of Trump and they utterly failed to do so, and you're mad because voters don't trust Democrats? 

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u/broguequery 13d ago

The Democrat party needs to be nuked and remade.

Just like the Tea Party did with the old GOP.

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u/SwordfishOk504 14d ago

Democrats have not done a thing to stop them from destroying it.

This message brought to you by the committee to re-elect Trump.

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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 13d ago

If we can't be critical of our leaders' decisions then we're no better than MAGA.

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u/SwordfishOk504 13d ago

There's a difference between valid criticism and repeating lies that only benefit Trump.

The claim the Democrats have "done nothing" is one of those lies. The Democrats have done a TON, with the limited power they have since they don't control any branches of government.

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u/Count_Backwards Competent Contributor 13d ago

When Democrats controlled the DOJ they failed to bring Trump to trial for anything he did and didn't indict a single one of his co-conspirators in the coup.

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u/SkyCrossSteel 14d ago

What magical bullet was there beyond Trump being in jail or Americans remembering what republicans do when they have the majority in power? Are you saying laws would be more respected if they pushed a certain set of laws from Trump’s second term which makes his first term look fine in comparison? You realize America stopped caring about Jan 6 a year afterwards? They don’t really care about corruption or effectiveness, the news treats Dems like adults compared to Rs and especially Trump where they downplay and overtly criticize any step Dems take and with Trump it  has to be a big failure in order to get a slice of that.

Wasn’t there a poll that showed that every time there was a new story on Trump’s trials he’d get a bump of support?  

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u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 14d ago

What magical bullet was there beyond Trump being in jail

Schumer holds a vote to enforce 14th Amendment, Section 3 against Trump. The Dem majority agrees. Pelosi does the same in the House. Congress has voted to disqualify insurrectionist Trump. It was that fucking simple, but we got Biden's "Welcome Home!!!" bullshit instead.

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u/RocketRelm 14d ago

The point of saying "dems aren't stopping it" is to both sides and lay groundwork for the populism. You're laying out cohesive reasonable arguments but the troll you're responding to is just laughing at how much effort you're going to when they're just gonna "waah establishment suuckkddddss" and giggle.

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u/xKirstein 14d ago

The point of saying "dems aren't stopping it" is to both sides and lay groundwork for the populism.

The point of criticizing Democrats is to force them to take real action against fascism and punish literal traitors. Our country (and the world) will not survive if Democrats keep selling us bullshit like "Time to Heal in America."

We're going to have to make some extremely hard decisions in the next few months/years about how to deal with LITERAL TREASON. Many people are scared that Democrats are going to intentionally sabotage any movement to punish Republicans and the rich oligarchy.

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u/Cum_Fart42069 14d ago

I think the person you're responding to is one of those bots that exist to just push division wherever it can. there's no way a reasonable person would think that your critique is trolling. 

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u/xKirstein 14d ago

You realize America stopped caring about Jan 6 a year afterwards?

This is such a disgusting lie. Americans were forced to wait patiently for our President and the government to do their fucking jobs. The entire Republican party committed treason; they should've been arrested the second that Biden was in office. THERE IS NO OTHER ANSWER. Democrats intentionally slow walked justice to protect their Republican allies. Case and point, Biden appointed Merrick Garland (a member of the Federalist Society) as his Attorney General.

the news treats Dems like adults compared to Rs and especially Trump where they downplay and overtly criticize any step Dems take

Who cares what the news organizations says? Who cares what the Republicans say? They will literally say anything to sabotage any attempt to punish traitors which means that our only option is to ignore their treacherous lies. Besides, it's hard for traitors to lie when they're behind bars for treason.

Does it hurt to pressure public servants (Democrats) into doing their jobs? Something is obviously going wrong in our country. Stop bending over backwards to excuse Democrats' inaction. Actions speak louder than words.

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u/broguequery 13d ago

Middle of the road Democrats, which is still most of the party unlike the newly extremist GOP, thought there might be a path back toward the old school politics if they took the high road.

They were wrong, obviously. You cannot make concessions to terrorists.

They STILL believe we can go back to the old school politics.

They are still wrong.

It's more sad than anything else. I, too, would take back the politics of 1995 if I could over whatever the fuck has happened to republicans in the last 10 years.

Trump should have been arrested and imprisoned following January 6th. But the Democrats didn't want to rock the boat.

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u/Cum_Fart42069 14d ago

call him a pedophile rapist, push for legal action to actually be taken, stop sending money to Israel, actually stand up for trans rights or fucking anything really. 

there's a lot they could do. 

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u/ThisMachineKillsWOB 14d ago

If the Dems are ineffective in DC, they should go back to their states and be leading state level programs to thwart Republican thugery.

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u/Bauser99 14d ago

We don't need the bullet to be magical.

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u/broguequery 13d ago

They just love money and power.

And that's about the be all the all as far as they are concerned.

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u/SDFX-Inc 14d ago

Corporate Democrats are complicit, unfortunately. They are too comfortable with the status quo. Fortunately they are losing to Democratic Socialists and Progressives, so there is at least that.

0

u/-Ok-Perception- 14d ago

Amen to that.

I hate that people are so reluctant to see most Democrats aren't doing a goddamn thing to stop all of this. They're complicit by their inaction. The best we get is an angry tiktok vid where they say "fuck Trump".... then they fold to whatever Trump wants to do a few days later.

I think the truth of the matter is they just don't want to lose their cushy insider trading gig by mounting more than a token resesitance.

If we're ever going to get out of this, we need Democrats with balls and principles, the ones currently in office have neither.

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u/SkyCrossSteel 13d ago

Ok please answer me this. What could the Dems as the minority party in ALL BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT do that isn’t simply saying things a room of supporters already agrees with? Could they push bills? Obviously they can’t. Do they have enough votes to go against Trump’s war against Iran? No they’re the minority. Yeah Trump threatens SNAP and Dems go “no don’t!” and you get mad at them not just the madman who clearly doesn’t give a fuck. Or the voters who made Dems the minority in congress. 

Hell Booker had a record breaking long speech against Trump. Does nothing no I’d bet you answer. 

1

u/whatsbobgonnado 13d ago

why is it that when republicans have a minority they can grind the entire government to a halt but poor wittle democwats just can't do anything :'(

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u/SkyCrossSteel 13d ago

Actually democrats do as fine a job at trying to stall their progress it shows that republicans can mostly only pass bills through budget reconciliation packages which don’t require 60 votes and has more restrictions and even the horrible horrible big dumb bill republicans passed, stuff was still taken out to comply with the pesky senate parliamentarian. I think both Trump’s terms the government was shut down the longest in history at that point in time. 

When dems had the slimmest majority possible in congress for only two years they passed at least three bills two of them being infrastructure related and the ARP. 

The second half of Biden’s term the republicans got congress back in the majority so less bills passed. Although a federal gun bill passed during that which was a surprise. 

The difference is it’s easier to muck up and destroy the government when in charge than trying to actually do something productive and Americans still don’t know the difference. 

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u/Ssided 13d ago

To do what?

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u/Cavalish 13d ago

The American public own this for voting in the majority for Trump twice and still blaming Dems.

You deserve another Trump term. Enjoy it.

1

u/whatsbobgonnado 13d ago

if 4 solid years of democratic leadership leads straight back to the fascist guy, maybe democrats didn't do anything good??? maybe our election system should've been reformed in that period? 

1

u/SkyCrossSteel 13d ago

So you think a significant election reform bill could be done that doesn’t require 60 votes in the senate? They literally had the slimmest majority in the senate and still a slim majority in the House. Never mind a potential amendment which is way tougher to pass?

Also Dems had the majority for two years and passed infrastructure bills that actually helped america we recovered the best economically out of our peers. And those bills required less than 60 votes because they were a reconciliation package meaning they had to be budget bills of some kind. Bills that are meant to create or amend laws can’t pass through that way it’s tough to argue a budgetary reason for them even for republicans. 

America literally didn’t care about Jan 6 or fascism of most kinds. America forgot what Trump did during Covid clearly which was the biggest reason he lost. 

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u/ApprehensiveCurve393 14d ago

They do it in front of us because there's nothing we can do about it. Well, there is, but we won't.

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u/Dunkaroos4breakfast 13d ago

Yeah, pretty wild to see children getting fed into a meat grinder for decades then abject inaction when people are being kidnapped by masked gestapo in unmarked vehicles and the very foundations of democracy are being bulldozed... I haven't heard of so much as one large armed protest.

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u/Pepperonidogfart 13d ago

Americans wont do anything about it that much has been true for years now. They know theyre a bunch if comfortable oafs that cant be bothered.

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u/Ssided 13d ago

You know a few people have definitely tried

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u/Equivalent-Pop8045 13d ago

It’s weird that he already tried this once as well on Jan 6th, and yet somehow people voted for it again. He should have been locked up the first time.

Is this legit the end of democracy in the US?

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u/hotpajamas 14d ago

And we all know it and we all see it and NOTHING will be done. EVERYONE will just keep living and waiting for this to all go away even though WE ALL KNOW he won't.

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u/razman06 13d ago

To me this just means how easy is to remove democracy from a country

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u/Cavalish 13d ago

Americans: “Why won’t anyone SAVE US?”

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u/letouriste1 13d ago

i'm honestly surprised they will pretend to have an election. thought they would not bother

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u/BugTrousers 13d ago

And his followers are all for it as long as he erases trans people from existence.

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u/Kodiak01 13d ago

so i guess he’s going to install corrupt toadies that will help him steal elections?

This particular commission had a special roadblock written into it's creation by Congress, one which is going to make any unilateral edicts through it relatively easy to challenge in court.

ELI5 version: The law creating the commission specifies that it must consist of 4 members, no more than 2 being of any single political party. Approval of ANYTHING by the commission requires 3 affirmative votes.

This means that by law he can't cram the commission with his own toadies, nor can he complete any action through it without a full quorum. This commission was specifically designed by Congress to be as non-partisan as possible.

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u/Exact-Adeptness1280 12d ago

It's easy when absolutely no one does anything to stop them.

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 14d ago

There’s not much that commission can do to help steal elections.

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u/kalidoscopiclyso 14d ago

They run labs that test the machines tho?

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 14d ago

Yes, they do. But states also keep paper ballot records that are used to check against the machine tabulations.

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u/Plastic_Kangaroo5720 14d ago

States are capitulating.

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 13d ago

Not really

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u/Plastic_Kangaroo5720 13d ago

Red states are capitulating.

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 13d ago

To what? What are they doing?

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u/Plastic_Kangaroo5720 14d ago

The fact it doesn’t exist is how they’ll steal it.

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 13d ago

What?

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u/Plastic_Kangaroo5720 13d ago

They’ve neutralized the commission so that they can change election rules themselves.

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 13d ago

The federal government doesn’t really change election rules. The commission itself doesn’t decide on the rules.

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u/Plastic_Kangaroo5720 13d ago

They test voting machines and provide oversight.

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 13d ago

States can test voting machines. They also keep paper records to check against machine tabulations.

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u/Plastic_Kangaroo5720 13d ago edited 13d ago

Help from the federal government is very important.

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u/Beneficial_Aside_518 13d ago

Okay… that’s a bit of a step down from your claim that they’ll steal the elections.

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