Democratic state officials and organizations across the country are preparing for a scenario in which the Trump administration deploys federal agents to the polls in November.
The administration has said it has no plans to send federal agents to polling locations on Election Day. But President Donald Trump and some of his close advisers have left voting rights organizations and state officials uneasy after deflecting when asked about whether they will be deployed.
“The deployment of federal power against its opponents and organizations and the public is really top of mind right now,” said EJ Juárez, executive director of the State Innovation Exchange, a network of progressive state legislators across the country. “We have a set of people in power that are very much set on changing the rules of the game midway through.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told lawmakers during a hearing in March that he would only send agents to the polls if there was a “specific threat,” but that he couldn’t “guarantee hypothetically what threat would be.” When asked Monday by Time magazine whether he would deploy federal agents, Trump said, “Haven’t thought of it.” He also refused to rule out using the Insurrection Act to declare a state of emergency leading up to the election.
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“In the event that something unusual or unexpected or alarming occurs, we have procedures in place to elevate that problem to our office,” Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, told The Washington Sun. “In collaboration with the attorney general’s office, we would be in court and getting orders from the court within hours, not days or months.”
Bellows’ office has been working with state and local officials nationwide through the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a component of the nonprofit Center for Internet Security. In February 2025, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency cut $10 million that Congress had appropriated to CIS, directly impacting the EI-ISAC’s work.
EI-ISAC was created in 2018 after elections were classified by the Department of Homeland Security as critical infrastructure. Election officials typically use it on Election Day as a situation room to share threat information, including threats from foreign adversaries. The November midterms will be the first major election without the federal government’s financial support or participation in the situation room.
Attorneys generals are working with election officials to get ahead of any attempts by the administration to send federal agents to the polls. Several sources who spoke with The Sun emphasized that this scenario could be illegal because federal laws state voters cannot be intimidated at the polls and armed federal agents cannot be present there.
“We’ve been doing the tabletop exercises not just between our office and the Michigan secretary of state and the governor’s office and Michigan State Police, but also with local communities,” Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said at a press briefing in September. “Community after community after community, we are sitting down and we are planning so that we can be ready for any set of circumstances that arises.”
Organizations are preparing programs and response networks to reassure voters in response to Trump administration rhetoric that elections aren’t secure.
The White House directed The Sun to a February news conference with then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said she couldn’t guarantee that an ICE agent wouldn’t be around a polling location, but that the president had no formal plans to deploy them.
The Department of Defense responded to a letter from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) asking whether federal agents would be deployed to the polls.
“The Department has no plan to deploy active-duty troops or Federalized National Guard to polling sites, nor does it have any plan to interfere with ballots, voting machines, or other election-related materials,” Assistant Secretary of Defense Mark Ditlevson wrote in his response.
In Tennessee, the city of Memphis has had a steady presence of federal police, immigrant enforcement agents and the National Guard as a part of an anti-crime task force the president launched last fall.
Ian Randolph, director of the Shelby County Voter Alliance, a coalition of non-partisan voting rights groups that works to turn out the vote, told The Sun that the tast force “had a deleterious effect” on turnout for primary voting and related events.
“It is not beyond us thinking that ICE or the federal police or the National Guard won’t show up at some of our polls here in Memphis, even if it’s just to sit out there,” Randolph said.
In some key areas, such a dampening effect on voter turnout could have serious implications for the most competitive races this midterm season.
The Save America Movement, a political organization based in Washington, D.C., that opposes the Trump administration, is planning to send a coalition of community members — including figures like clergy, nurses, teachers and veterans — to Mecklenburg County in North Carolina, Wayne County in Michigan, DeKalb County in Georgia and Cuyahoga County in Ohio. Community members trained in “de-escalation, deterrence and documentation” will be present at those polling locations.
Co-founder Mary Corcoran said the organization chose the counties based on the high-profile races there. She said she also asked herself, “What would Stephen Miller do?”
“These counties have robust immigrant populations. Black, Latino and Asian populations,” Corcoran told The Sun. “Even if a small percentage of those voters that turned out in the last midterm election were intimidated into not showing up this year, it could have an impact on the outcome of the statewide races in those states.”
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