The White House is removing a member of the Federal Election Commission for standing up for clean elections, while trying to install another member whose specialty is keeping eligible voters from casting ballots. The Senate, which must confirm nominees, should insist that President Bush appoint commissioners with a proven record of supporting voting rights and fair elections.

Mr. Bush is purging the current F.E.C. chairman, David Mason, presumably because he was responsible enough to challenge the funding machinations of Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign. Mr. Mason shocked his fellow Republicans by notifying Mr. McCain that he might run afoul of the law by switching from public funding to private donations once he secured the party’s nomination.

The White House proposes to replace Mr. Mason with Donald McGahn, a Republican warhorse. F.E.C. commissioners are expected to be aligned with a party  one of the new Democratic nominees is a staff member of Senator Charles Schumer of New York  but Mr. McGahn has a particularly partisan background. He was the party’s Congressional campaign counsel  and the ethics lawyer for Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader from Texas who left office under multiple clouds.

The six-member commission, which now has four vacancies, has been rendered inoperable. If it is to perform its role as referee of national elections, it urgently needs a full complement  and it needs commissioners with the sort of professionalism displayed by Mr. Mason.