Trump dismisses election commissioners, his latest step to shape voting

President Trump has removed the remaining three members of the bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Here's what it means.

Transcript

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

A bipartisan federal agency that helps with U.S. elections now has a void at the top. This is after President Trump dismissed its three remaining commissioners yesterday. NPR correspondent Ashley Lopez covers elections and votings and joins us now to talk about this.

Hey, Ashley.

ASHLEY LOPEZ, BYLINE: Hey there.

DETROW: So the agency in question is the Election Assistance Commission. Not a well-known agency. First off, tell us what it is.

LOPEZ: Yeah. so the EAC is an independent agency created after the chaos of the 2000 presidential election to basically help states switch to newer voting equipment and to provide other resources that help them run elections without the snafus we saw in 2000. States run their own elections. So the federal government doesn't really have much of a role beyond helping them. So the EAC doesn't count ballots. They don't monitor polling sites, anything like that. This is an agency that is bipartisan. It is not political. There are four commissioners and no party can represent more than two of those seats.

DETROW: OK, supposed to have four, now it has zero. So what happened?

LOPEZ: So President Trump dismissed the EAC's three remaining members. One, a Republican, had actually resigned earlier this year, but yesterday, Trump fired the two Democrats, and the remaining Republican resigned.

DETROW: Did Trump offer a rationale for this?

LOPEZ: So a White House official said the president, quote, "reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America's elections" end quote. Notably, the official also referenced a recent Supreme Court ruling. Last month, there was this big decision, and the conservative majority on the court expanded the president's power to fire members of independent agencies at will, which reversed decades of precedent.

DETROW: This is something Trump has been obsessed with. As late as this week, he was still repeatedly referencing the 2020 election that he lost. He insists he won. He did not. What has the reaction been among voting officials?

LOPEZ: I mean, there's a lot of concern that Trump is using his limited power in elections to interfere with the upcoming midterms in any way he can. Some Democrats on the Hill said they see this as part of Trump's ongoing efforts to erode trust in election outcomes as well as undermining any independent oversight. I talked to Matt Weil at the Bipartisan Policy Center. He actually worked at the EAC for several years and has known all the commissioners in the agency's 23-year history. He told me these removals are a loss for the American people because it was an agency that was created to help states run elections in a bipartisan way.

MATT WEIL: They all were there - Democrats, Republicans alike - because they wanted to improve voting in America. And on the hard topics, when they didn't disagree - didn't agree on everything, they found a way to get to unanimous consent on almost everything that they did.

DETROW: We've both, at this point, mentioned Trump's focus on this and the worries from many corners that he's trying to interfere with coming election results. Give us some context of what's been happening.

LOPEZ: Well, I mean, President Trump has not hidden the fact that he wants power over how elections are run in this country. Since taking office again, he has signed two executive orders that would up end how elections are run. I should note that federal courts have blocked these orders from going into effect. His justice department is suing states for sensitive voter data and threatening over how they maintain their voter roles. And, of course, he is pushing Congress to pass an overhaul of election policy all before this very contentious midterm election, where his party is expected to lose some power. And as we also in 2020, when Trump loses elections, he does not admit defeat. He tries to change outcomes and claim fraud when he can't. And all of this is extremely worrying to voting rights advocates.

DETROW: NPR's Ashley Lopez. Thank you so much.

LOPEZ: Yeah. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.