The Arlington County Board sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over allegedly authorizing armed federal agents to be present at polling places during the midterm elections.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, accuses the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice of crafting policies that allow armed federal officers, including FBI and ICE agents, to carry out civil and immigration law enforcement operations at election sites.
The board argues the alleged policies exceed federal statutory authority, infringe on local governments’ constitutional authority and violate an 1865 law that prohibits military troops from being present at the polls unless to vote or “repel armed enemies of the United States.”
The lawsuit bases its allegations on comments DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and FBI Director Kash Patel made in September about federal agents’ authority at polling places.
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Mullin said during a Sept. 1 news conference that ICE agents could conduct enforcement operations at election sites, including serving warrants, under certain circumstances.
“The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down,” he said.
A DHS spokesperson told The Washington Sun that ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations, but “if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.”
“Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences, including criminal charges and deportation,” the DHS spokesperson said in a statement.
Patel told the Senate Judiciary Committee later in September that it was a lie that the FBI wouldn’t send agents to polling places, and said “I don’t know that we can’t legally do it.”
“We have election crisis coordinators manned at all 56 field offices,” Patel said. “Election integrity is of paramount importance. This FBI is not going to shy away from that effort.”
A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Sun that the agency never said it would send federal law enforcement to polling locations and that “any suggestion otherwise is fearmongering.”
The complaint states that armed federal agents at polling places “are likely to disrupt the peaceful exercise of voting rights” and can interfere with the “smooth administration of local, state, and federal elections by undermining trust in the election.”
“Threatening to send armed agents to polling stations is unlawful and contravenes the bedrock values of free and fair elections we hold dear in this country,” Arlington County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said in a statement. “These statements are a clear attempt to stoke fear and undermine confidence in our elections. The Arlington County Board will do all we can to protect our voters and their right to vote.”
The lawsuit follows separate concerns about voter intimidation that members of the public raised in D.C. and Northern Virginia earlier this month.
After an Oct. 8 video circulated on social media showing National Guard members standing near a ballot drop box in Foggy Bottom, the D.C. Board of Elections asked the National Guard not to patrol near polling places. A week later, residents across Alexandria found flyers stuck to their cars that cited federal laws barring immigrants in the country illegally from voting.
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