Elections

News Guard Reality Check -   What’s happening: On July 9, President Donald Trump fired two Democratic members of the bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission and previously pressured the third member, a Republican, to quit. The EAC has been an independent federal agency that certifies voting systems and develops election administration guidance for states. The move came as NewsGuard tracked its 380th false claim related to U.S. elections, underscoring how election misinformation continues to proliferate as the 2026 midterm cycle moves into high gear.

Explaining the firings, the White House said in a statement to The Associated Press, “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.” It is unclear if or when Trump plans to nominate commissioners to the agency, who must be confirmed by the Senate. At full strength, the agency is run by four commissioners.

The action follows a recent Supreme Court ruling that said presidents can remove officials who lead agencies that are part of the Executive Branch.

Democrats quickly raised concerns. In a joint statement, Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California and Rep. Joe Morelle of New York said of the firings: “Purging commissioners just months before the midterm elections and further gutting support for our state and local elections officials is a blatant part of [Trump’s] plan to politicize our elections and enable more unlawful and dangerous election interference.”

A closer look: False claims about rigged elections, foreign election interference, voting procedures, and candidate records have been a mainstay of NewsGuard’s False Claims Fingerprints, a continuously updated database of false claims spreading online. Indeed, since 2019, NewsGuard has identified and debunked 380 false election-related claims.

During the 2024 presidential cycle, NewsGuard documented 100 false election claims, 24 of which originated as state-sponsored narratives from Russia and Iran, including one claiming that a Russian foundation’s investigation proved Democrats had a plan to rig the election. (In August 2025, then-Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that the administration was dissolving the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which focused on countering hostile foreign efforts to subvert U.S. elections.)…

Following the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Democratic President Joe Biden, NewsGuard identified 51 viral false claims that were presented as evidence that the election had been stolen, many of them advanced by Trump himself. Voting Systems switched votes from Trump to Biden; and that Wisconsin had more votes than registered voters.