President Donald Trump speaks with reporters Wednesday on Air Force One after landing at a U.S. airbase in Suffolk, England.
On Friday he ousted members of a federal election panel who have resisted his efforts to change election rules.
“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,” said a White House statement to AP.
The president removed the four-seat commission’s two Democratic members, Thomas Hicks and Benjamin Hovland.
The panel’s Republican member, Christy McCormick resigned.
Former Republican commissioner Donald Palmer already had left his post voluntarily earlier this year.
The changes were first reported by VoteBeat, a news outlet that covers elections and voting across the U.S,
Trump has repeatedly tried to reshape voting regulations, even though the U.S.
Constitution grants control of elections to the states and not the president.
Citing that separation of powers, courts have blocked most of Trump’s two executive orders that sought to reshape voting.
Trump has also launched an investigation of his 2020 loss , which he continues to falsely insist was due to fraud, and this week his administration threatened states if they did not try to purge what federal officials believe are noncitizens from their voter rolls.
Still, Trump has largely been powerless to change election processes through executive fiat and David Becker, a former Department of Justice attorney who runs the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said his purge of the EAC wouldn’t alter that.
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