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US President Donald Trump on Thursday appointed the last three members of the Election Assistance Commission, an independent commission that assists election administration officials across the country, the White House confirmed.
The remaining three commissioners of the four-member commission were forced to leave on Thursday in different ways. One Republican nominee resigned and two other Democratic nominees were fired in an email from the White House Office of the President’s Staff, according to one person with knowledge of the decision and two other people briefed on the decision.
The fourth commissioner left in April.
The cancellation follows a Supreme Court ruling last week that gave the president more power to fire members of private corporations, and Trump’s push for central government intervention in the voting process, which traditionally focuses on states, as midterm elections approach in November.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance Commission has been terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” the termination email, seen by Reuters, said.
It is not clear how Trump will move forward with the commission or how federal employees who support the agency will be affected.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was recently in Canada and we asked him about the upcoming midterms. He spoke with CBC News reporter Adrienne Arsenault about the November election, which will be a key test for Democrats.
‘Irresponsible and dangerous’
The Electoral Assistance Commission serves as the “national clearinghouse for election management,” accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, and maintains the national voter registration form created by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the commission’s website.
In a joint statement, Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California and House Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, also a Democrat, said the president “continues to repeat his efforts to destroy confidence in our elections.”
WATCH | What the commission does:
“The firing of the commissioners just months before the midterm elections and the continued support of our state and local election officials is a clear part of his plan to politicize our elections and allow illegal and dangerous election interference,” the lawmakers said.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes in a statement called it a “reckless and dangerous” decision. In a subsequent appearance Thursday night on MS Now, Fontes said that while much of the electoral commission’s work and support is “generally in the near future,” and the recruitment and training of poll workers is progressing well, they do not have a stable or reliably independent agency in case of any last-minute problems.
The commission was created by Congress in 2002 after a tumultuous presidential election two years earlier, in which the validity of a large number of Florida ballots was disputed in a protracted legal battle that reached the Supreme Court.
The four commissioners are appointed by the president, are required to be evenly split with two Democrats and two Republicans, and ultimately require confirmation by the Senate. The three remaining commissioners who were forced out – Thomas Hicks, Benjamin Hovland and Christy McCormick – were all confirmed unanimously by the Senate.
The termination follows a push by Trump and senior administration officials to change mail-in voting requirements ahead of the midterm elections. Trump called last week’s Supreme Court ruling that allowed Mississippi to process mail-in ballots days after Election Day “undermining the integrity of elections.”
Administrations have hit legal roadblocks in their efforts to obtain voter registration information in many states, with federal judges denying many of the efforts.
This week, the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent letters Tuesday to election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia saying they and other election officials could face criminal charges if they knowingly allow nonvoters to vote or remain on the ballot.
Front burner33:03Will Trump cancel the midterms?
Meanwhile, Trump repeated his promise on Friday on social media not to sign the housing bill into law with bipartisan support, until the Senate passes his desired Save America legislation. The act would require photo ID to vote in state elections and proof of US citizenship to register, while forcing states to turn over their voter rolls to the federal government.
Democrats and voting rights groups say the law would bar Americans without passports and birth certificates from voting as noncitizens, which research shows is extremely rare.
Senate Republicans have told the Trump administration that the Save America Act has no chance of getting the necessary votes, and some reportedly oppose the bill’s proposal to end universal suffrage. Some commentators have argued that Republican voters were too fanatical than the Democrats mail-in voting until Trump entered national politics, and he won two of the three US elections that produced the highest number of absentee or absentee ballots.
In his second term, Trump has again claimed without evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. The presidential election takes place in a highly segregated, complex polling place where some 10,000 votes are cast, not just for Congress, but for dozens of local and state races.
It is not clear under such a situation how the 2020 presidential vote can be summed up while other votes in separate ballots in each region, and often processed by different voting technology systems, can appear without incident or disruption.
The FBI searched a Fulton County polling place in Georgia in January and seized hundreds of ballot boxes and other documents for the 2020 election. However, a federal judge in recent days rejected the government’s subpoena — which it called “not met with any necessity” — that requested the names and personal contact information of Fulton County election workers and volunteer poll workers.
