The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) is an independent federal agency that is charged with helping election officials to improve the administration of elections and voters to participate in the electoral process. It was established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) as part of Congress’s response to problems with the administration of the 2000 elections. The EAC—and the legislation that created it—marked something of a shift in the federal approach to election administration. Previous federal election laws had set requirements for the administration of federal elections, but HAVA was the first to back its requirements with substantial support. The act authorized grant programs for election administration and an assistance-oriented elections agency, the EAC. That focus on assistance—in combination with other objectives, such as providing for a range of expert input into agency activities and guarding against partisanship—informed the duties and structure of the agency. The EAC’s rulemaking authority is limited, and its other duties are primarily oriented toward facilitating or incentivizing elections activities rather than compelling them. Those duties, most of which are designed to involve opportunities for input from a range of elections stakeholders, include administering grant programs; providing for voluntary voting system guidelines, testing, and certification; issuing voluntary guidance for implementation of certain HAVA requirements; conducting research and sharing best practices; and establishing a youth voter participation and poll worker recruitment program. The EAC consists of an appointed commission, a professional staff led by an executive director and general counsel, an Office of Inspector General, three statutory advisory bodies (Board of Advisors, Standards Board, and Technical Guidelines Development Committee), and one agency-created advisory body (Local Leadership Council). The structure of the EAC, like its duties, reflects its emphasis on assistance. The agency’s advisory bodies are designed to be central to its functioning, with opportunities for input into its guidance, planning, and staffing. Voters are to be represented on one of the advisory bodies, and state officials, local officials, or their representatives are to make up some or all of the membership of all four. The EAC was also set up to provide for a range of expert input into agency activities and to help guard against partisanship. In addition to voters and state and local officials, the agency’s advisory bodies are intended to include experts in various other fields relevant to election administration. The membership and selection processes for the commission and some of the advisory bodies, as well as a quorum requirement for certain commission actions, are also designed for partisan balance. Both at the time of HAVA and since, opinions have differed about the role of the EAC. One question Congress considered when developing the agency was whether it should exist as a separate agency at all. That question was also a subject of particular congressional interest for a period starting with the 112th Congress. Some Members introduced legislation to terminate the EAC in each of the 112th through 115th Congresses, and the House Committee on Appropriations recommended cutting or eliminating the agency’s funding each year between FY2012 and FY2018. The Senate also stopped confirming—and some congressional leaders stopped recommending—nominees to the agency’s commission during part of that period. The primary focus of congressional debate about the EAC shifted from whether there is a role for the agency to what its role should be following foreign efforts to interfere in the 2016 elections. The EAC has participated in the federal response to election interference and other high-profile developments in recent election cycles, such as the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the 2020 cycle and an increase in threats to election workers during and after 2020, and EAC-related bills introduced in the 116th through 119th Congresses to date have tended to propose new duties, authorities, or authorizations of operational funding for the agency. The EAC’s role—and its positioning to perform it—has also been addressed during the 119th Congress in executive activity. An executive order issued by President Donald Trump in March 2025 included provisions related to EAC action on grant funding, election systems, and the federal mail voter registration form. On July 9, 2026, three members of the agency’s four-person commission were effectively removed from their positions. Combined with the resignation of the fourth commissioner in April 2026, those departures have left the commission without members for the second time in its history and without the requisite quorum to take official action for the third time.
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