Active polymers are being developed to mimic a salient feature of life: movement in response to stimuli. Large deformation can lead to intriguing phenomena; for example, recent experiments have shown that a voltage can deform a layer of a dielectric elastomer into two coexistent states, one being flat and the other wrinkled. This observation, as well as the needs to analyze large deformation under diverse stimuli, has led us to reexamine the theory of electromechanics. In his classic text, Maxwell showed that electric forces between conductors in a vacuum could be calculated using a field of stress in the vacuum. The Maxwell stress has since been invoked in deformable dielectrics. This practice has been on an insecure theoretical foundation.