Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., today called on Republican leaders to recommend nominees for a federal election agency that sat without a single commissioner, executive director or general counsel as voters encountered long lines, machine malfunctions and other problems on Election Day.

Boxer urged Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to take “immediate action” to fill the vacancies at the Election Assistance Commission by recommending names for the two open Republican commissioner positions after not doing so for nearly a year.

“I believe the dysfunction we witnessed may have been reduced had this commission been fully staffed and operational,” Boxer wrote in a letter.

The Election Assistance Commission was created when Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 with broad bipartisan support. The federal agency, the first of its kind, was given more than $3 billion to dole out to states for improved election administration. It’s also supposed to be a repository of effective election processes, develop voluntary voting-system guidelines, set up procedures to certify laboratories that test voting equipment, and ensure that states are upgrading their voting technology.

The commission is overseen by two Democratic and two Republican commissioners, who are recommended by congressional leaders, nominated by the White House and confirmed by the Senate. Each party’s nominees are supposed to move through the process in tandem.