Experts are sounding alarms over the status of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which has been largely paralyzed from performing much of its work.

Former Commissioner Allen Dickerson’s departure from the body at the conclusion of his term at the end of April gave the normally six-person FEC its third vacancy. A loss of quorum now prevents the FEC from carrying out many of its responsibilities, including holding meetings, conducting investigations and issuing penalties against potential violators.

An apparent lack of urgency in filling the vacancies could cause a significant backlog of cases as the midterm elections approach.

“It really puts the country in a bind when the FEC doesn't have a working quorum, without enough commissioners to do its job, everything just piles up,” said Michael Beckel, the senior research director for the cross-partisan group Issue One, which educates and advocates on issues concerning U.S. democracy, elections and government.

“At the end of the day, without a quorum, the FEC is a watchdog that doesn’t have the ability to bark or bite,” he said.

The lack of quorum is a rarity in the agency’s 50-year history but not entirely without precedent. The first instance occurred in 2008, toward the end of George W. Bush’s presidency.

Beckel said political pressure contributed to the end of that six-month gap in the FEC’s work as Republican presidential nominee John McCain used public financing for his campaign and needed the agency to sign off on the funding, which it could only do with the quorum of at least four members.

But no major party nominee has used public financing since then, and Beckel expressed doubt about a similar situation arising to create the same pressure.

“Without the same sort of political pressure existing now, it's hard to imagine what contours might arise that would lead to a logjam being broken,” he said.

The other instances came in Trump’s first term, in 2019 and 2020, with just a one-month respite between them.

Complaints can still be submitted to the agency during this period, but the FEC can’t enact fines or other penalties, issue new rules or advisories or conduct audits. Since the current loss of quorum........

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