The mechanism is quorum, which is the least dramatic way an agency can be stopped. The Election Assistance Commission requires three commissioners to act. The president fired the three who remained [1].
What that produces is not abolition. Wren Orey of the Bipartisan Policy Center notes that 'the president cannot single-handedly remove it because it is enshrined in federal law' [1]. It produces paralysis. A memo from the American Council for Election Technology states the position plainly: 'policymaking authority remains suspended until at least three commissioners are seated and concur' [1].
The commission's advisory committees can still meet and still draft. They cannot finalise [1].
Among the things awaiting finalisation are the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines - the federal standards governing, among much else, accessible ballot-marking devices, the machines that let a voter who cannot read a paper ballot mark one independently and privately [1]. Diane Golden, of the commission's Technical Guidelines Development Committee, noted the timing: 'Those commissioners were on a short timeline' [1].
The clearest statement of what is at stake came from someone who uses the machines. Sachin Pavithran serves on the US Access Board and is blind. 'It is the vehicle I've used to vote,' he said, 'and if that vehicle is taken away, I don't know how else I would vote' [1].
Nothing about this changes the law. Accessible voting is still required. What has changed is that the body responsible for saying what counts as accessible cannot currently say anything at all.
