New Delhi, July 11 -- WASHINGTON - The email arrived without warning. Benjamin Hovland, the only remaining chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, learned Wednesday that his job was gone, not through a call from the White House, not through a formal notification, but through a brief message in his inbox telling him the president had decided to remove him.

By Wednesday afternoon, all three remaining EAC commissioners had been dismissed. The commission was left without anyone to run it, four months before Americans go to the polls for the 2026 midterm elections.

The commission was created by Congress after the contested 2000 presidential recount in Florida, which exposed how inconsistent voting equipment across counties could pr...