Why you should care about Trump gutting the Election Assistance Commission ⁠66%

By Steve Benen⁠95%

7/10/2026, 1:00:00 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Recency Bias, and Pessimism Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 57% saturation with 371 hits. Analysis detected 2,105 faulty-reasoning hits from 651 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60% and a BS Rank of ⁠66% (7,100 of 20,371 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 65.10% of the article peer group.

In the wake of the 2000 elections, there was one thing Democrats and Republicans could agree on: The entire election cycle was a mess that exposed structural and institutional flaws that required reforms. 
It wasn’t easy, but Congress ultimately passed the Help America Vote Act (better known as HAVA) in 2002, which included a variety of constructive changes and created a new entity called the Election Assistance Commission. 
In the 24 years that followed, the EAC wasn’t particularly controversial. 
The point of the commission, as its name implies, is to assist state and local election administrators with training, security grants, voluntary election management guidelines and detailed information on best practices, including specifications for testing and certifying election equipment. 
There was no reason to gut the commission. 
Donald Trump did it anyway. 
MS NOW reported : 
President Donald Trump fired the remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission on Thursday, a White House official confirmed to MS NOW. 
The move effectively leaves the bipartisan agency without any commissioners and unable to carry out its official duties just months before the 2026 midterm elections. 
For all of the Republicans’ overwrought rhetoric about “election security” and “election integrity,” the gutting of the Election Assistance Commission moves the nation in the opposite direction. 
Until very recently, such a move wouldn’t have just been seen as a power grab, it also would’ve been recognized as legally dubious: Commission members are Senate-confirmed officials serving on an independent agency. 
The idea that a president could just send them an email and push them into unemployment was unrealistic. 
But after Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court issued their Trump v. 
Slaughter ruling early last week, the executive branch suddenly had vast new powers to remove independent government regulators and officials at independent federal agencies. 
The incumbent president decided to take this new authority out for a spin and started firing Election Assistance Commission members, because the White House decided they “may not be totally aligned” with Trump’s vision. 
“Donald Trump said Republicans should ‘take over the voting,’” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a written statement. 
“Today, he took another step toward doing exactly that.” 
The word in that statement that stood out of me was “another” — because while the president’s move against the EAC is significant, it’s important not to lose sight of the broader pattern as Trump targets the midterm elections in breathtaking ways. 
The New York Times reported last week: 
President Trump is trying to use the levers of the federal government, along with personal influence over state and local lawmakers, to reshape the rules governing the 2026 midterms and future elections in extraordinary ways. 
Many of these efforts have been blocked by courts, stymied by the Constitution or stopped in Congress. 
But the relentless assault by the president on the electoral process — both administratively and rhetorically — is likely to sow doubt and lay groundwork for extensive challenges to election results. 
The lengthy and detailed Times report highlighted what is effectively a “whole of government” initiative, with officials and agencies from across the executive branch — from the Justice Department to the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence agencies to the U.S. 
Postal Service — launching dozens of overlapping efforts aimed at tipping the electoral scales in the Republican Party’s favor months before a single ballot is cast. 
The article added, “The Trump administration has gutted key elements of the nation’s election security infrastructure. 
Experts warn that the changes could reduce visibility into nationwide cyberattacks and foreign influence campaigns while making it more difficult for state and local election officials to coordinate defensive operations.” 
The decision to neuter the Election Assistance Commission four months before Election Day makes that problem far worse. 
The post Why you should care about Trump gutting the Election Assistance Commission appeared first on MS NOW . 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 5.1%Steve Benen: 10.6%MS NOW: 7.6%Confirmation Bias5.1%This article: 6.5%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.2%Anchoring Bias6.5%This article: 18.6%Steve Benen: 3.7%MS NOW: 3.7%Availability Heuristic18.6%This article: 4.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic4.0%This article: 1.7%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.3%Hindsight Bias1.7%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 2.6%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 7.1%Steve Benen: 23.2%MS NOW: 15.5%Framing Effect7.1%This article: 1.7%Steve Benen: 0.4%MS NOW: 0.7%Loss Aversion1.7%This article: 6.8%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.9%Status Quo Bias6.8%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 5.4%Steve Benen: 1.3%MS NOW: 2.4%Optimism Bias5.4%This article: 20.3%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 3.2%Pessimism Bias20.3%This article: 49.9%Steve Benen: 29.4%MS NOW: 19.3%Negativity Bias49.9%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.1%MS NOW: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 5.2%Steve Benen: 4.7%MS NOW: 3.1%Fundamental Attribution Error5.2%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.3%MS NOW: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 1.8%Steve Benen: 3.4%MS NOW: 3.5%In-Group Bias1.8%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.3%MS NOW: 2.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 6.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 2.2%Halo Effect6.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 4.5%MS NOW: 1.8%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 22.0%Steve Benen: 2.9%MS NOW: 1.8%Recency Bias22.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 7.9%MS NOW: 4.8%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 2.8%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.3%Straw Man2.8%This article: 10.9%Steve Benen: 6.4%MS NOW: 5.4%Appeal to Authority10.9%This article: 4.1%Steve Benen: 1.5%MS NOW: 2.2%False Dilemma4.1%This article: 4.8%Steve Benen: 1.7%MS NOW: 2.2%Slippery Slope4.8%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 14.6%Steve Benen: 8.9%MS NOW: 8.1%Hasty Generalization14.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.7%MS NOW: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.2%MS NOW: 0.9%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 9.4%Steve Benen: 11.4%MS NOW: 9.9%Appeal to Emotion9.4%This article: 2.6%Steve Benen: 3.5%MS NOW: 2.4%Begging the Question2.6%This article: 10.3%Steve Benen: 3.3%MS NOW: 3.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)10.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 0.6%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 0.9%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 6.3%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Composition/Division6.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 2.6%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 11.1%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)11.1%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.5%MS NOW: 0.3%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.2%MS NOW: 1.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 1.4%Steve Benen: 3.8%MS NOW: 2.5%Unattributed Quote1.4%This article: 0.6%Steve Benen: 2.6%MS NOW: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.6%This article: 57.0%Steve Benen: 22.8%MS NOW: 14.3%Biased Writer Voice57.0%This article: 11.2%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 2.1%Indoctrination11.2%This article: 14.4%Steve Benen: 8.6%MS NOW: 5.4%Politically Left Leaning Bias14.4%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.6%MS NOW: 0.6%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

651 words analyzed.

Speakers

4speakers9.2%attributed speech591writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 11 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 33 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 35 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 39 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageDonald Trump • 5 words • 100.0% coverageMS NOW • 4 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 25 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 33 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 34 words • 100.0% coverageChuck Schumer • 19 words • 0.0% coverageChuck Schumer • 9 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 42 words • 100.0% coverageThe New York Times • 7 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 35 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 41 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 26 words • 0.0% coverageThe New York Times • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 30 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Donald Trump

100%flagged-word coverage
5 attributed words8.3% of attributed speech93% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice+38.1 ptsWriter: 61.9%Donald Trump: 100.0%100.0%Politically Left Leaning B-15.9 ptsWriter: 15.9%Donald Trump: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-12.4 ptsWriter: 12.4%Donald Trump: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.