'Slaughter' Effect Arrives at the EAC
Shake-ups at federal agencies and more. Here's a update on developments this week.
From dueling legal rulings that could re-start the SAVE database for voter verification, the Department of Justice reminding states of election laws they are duty-bound to follow, EPEC Team is tracking a whooshing week of election developments around the nation and in Virginia.
Some highlights — starting with the Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
Slaughter Effect at the EAC
President Trump has dismissed three remaining commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), per multiple reports. The move follows the Supreme Court’s Trump v. Slaughter ruling which affirmed the chief executive’s authority to oversee the executive branch when he fired Democrat-appointee commissioner Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission.
Reuters reported that commissioners Thomas Hicks and Benjamin W. Hovland, both Democrat appointees, were fired by email. Republican commissioner Christy McCormick was asked to resign via a phone call.
Don Palmer, a Republican appointee and fourth commissioner, resigned in April as chair and has since joined Heritage.
A White House official’s statement to Reuters cited the Trump v. Slaughter case:
The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.
The Slaughter decision gives the President precedence to do so. 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.
Democracy Docket, affiliated with election-security denier and uber-Democrat Marc Elias, called the decision a “Sweeping Attack” on elections, while quoting Democrat organizations claiming it would impact their oversight of elections.
Followers of EAC might be forgiven for stifling a laugh over Reuters’ story that claimed the move would “hamstring” the “bipartisan” agency ahead of the midterms.
Any bipartisan critique of the EAC would agree it is hamstrung by its own bureaucracy, especially in developing security standards and testing labs to help states adopt best practices in election security.
In point of fact, as Just Security noted, the day-to-day of EAC’s work goes on, including dispersing grants to states for election upgrades, and overseeing election-vendor certifications to its Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) 2.0 standard.
With no commissioners, the agency’s authority will go to the EAC Executive Director, who has limited authority to continue running EAC operations as outlined in the EAC’s Roles and Responsibilities policy.
Although the EAC retired its certification of vendors to Version 1.0 of its Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) in 2023, many election vendors are still using those 20-year-old guidelines in today’s elections. They need to be incentivized to upgrade.
A final approval to VVSG 2.1, considered a point upgrade (not a major change from its VVSG 2.0 standard) can’t be approved without a new slate of commissioners. The board and its advisory committees have been reviewing the 2.1 upgrade long before the commissioners were fired. Why the delay?
An observation from a member of the EAC’s Technical Guidelines Development Committee, during a meeting to discuss the White House March 25, 2025 Executive Order on securing election systems, may provide context.
“Let’s be blunt,” said TGDC member Paul Lux during an Aug. 8th, 2025 EAC advisory group meeting on voter-verified paper ballots. “In another 2.5 years, another Executive Order could come along that says ‘stick it all back in there,’” said Lux, a supervisor of elections for Okaloosa County, Fla.
Working groups like this one at the EAC are notorious for members who constantly request more meetings, and appear to look for delays during their working sessions.
The firings of the commissioners may be their wake up call. Jonathan Turley, law professor and media pundit, observes:
President Trump “came to power with a pledge to transform our government by making it smaller and more responsive, as well as to carry out sweeping reforms in areas such as immigration enforcement [and election security]. He was stymied by lower courts imposing dozens of injunctions and even federal officials who gummed up the works.”
With the Slaughter decision, Turley addes, the Supreme Court “has cleared much of that away for the president, and he carried out a wholesale house cleaning of agencies.”
As for the EAC commissioners, a White House official said they would be replaced. #
Letters to States, Following the Law
Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General, has sent a letter to all 50 states detailing the federal election laws they are bound to observe.
In her letter to Michigan’s Secretary of State, Dhillon cites relevant statutes that make it a “crime for ‘an election official’ in a federal election to ‘knowingly and willfully deprive, defraud, or attempt to deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the [election official] to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent…” Full letter is here.
She is putting all states on notice:
The DOJ is also monitoring elections in select jurisdictions across six states, which it has historically done in years past. On the list: Virginia.
Blue states that have welcomed DOJ observers in prior administrations are suddenly up at arms.
Dueling Rulings on the SAVE Database for Voter-List Maintenance
A federal judge in Florida has ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to immediately restore key features of a federal immigration verification system that several states rely on to check voter rolls and professional license applicants, per Florida TV station News4JAX.
“U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II, of the Northern District of Florida, issued the ruling July 7, granting an emergency motion filed by Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana to enforce a settlement agreement with DHS.”
Wetherell’s ruling took issue with Judge Sparkle Sooknanan of the D.C. district, whose June 22nd ruling siding with the League of Women Voters claimed a nationwide injunction to stop the use of the SAVE database.
Of the dueling rulings, “Judge T. Kent Wetherell II got the SAVE system ruling right, and he got it right for a reason most coverage missed,” writes Jay Rogers in the Washington Examiner.
“He didn’t write a new national rule. He enforced a contract.”
On July 7, the Florida-based federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to restore bulk-upload and Social Security number search features in the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system, the tool several states use to check citizenship status against voter rolls.
The order grew out of a settlement DHS reached with Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana, filed in November 2025 and approved that December. DHS honored the deal for six months, then shut the features off on June 23 after a different judge blew up the policy.
Read the Examiner’s critique here explaining why Sooknanan, who has since ordered up a rejoinder ruling of sorts, is not only wrong on the law, but is abusing her regional district court authority to bind the nation. In response, Republican Congressman Abe Hamadeh of Arizona filed articles of impeachment against her this week while appeals move on. #
U.S.P.S. Rule-Making Presses On
The Trump administration is also appealing two district-level judges who issued nationwide injunctions on a White House Executive Order for the U.S. Postal Service to add security to mail-in ballots.
Like Sooknanan’s actions, it is unclear how regional district judges have authority to issue nationwide injunctions, given a recent Supreme Court ruling that says district judges exceed their authority with nationwide injunctions.
The March 31, 2026 EO states that the “unlawful use of the mail in connection with elections is prohibited by various Federal statutes, including 18 U.S.C. 1341, 18 U.S.C. 1708, 52 U.S.C. 10307, and 52 U.S.C. 20511.”
Groups such as America First Legal are urging the U.S.P.S. rule-making to upgrade mail-in security features, such as:
Creating a standardized Official Election Mail logo for federal ballot envelopes.
Requiring unique Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMb) to use in tracing ballots.
Establishing participation lists for election officials using the Federal Ballot Mail Portal.
Adding a verification process to help ensure ballots are mailed to individuals on approved participation lists.
The legal fights go on. #
VA Primary Check In
Back in Virginia, one might say the voting trickles on. As of midweek, turnout for the Aug. 4th Republican and Democrat primary elections is as follows:
Approved and Countable early ballots (R): 14,733
Approved and Countable early ballots (D): 26,249.
Check your registration status here.
Also, the Department of Elections Pocket Guide, with key dates for mail-in ballots and in-person voting, is here. #
1) EAC's E.D. Schletz previously spend significant time in an oversight role at USAID (per the attached link)...nothing to see here...
2) Can we recommend Clay Parihk as an EAC board member replacement?
3) Hope the DoJ monitors do more than poll watch.