President Donald Trump hasn’t ruled out deploying troops or federal agents to polling places in November. Democrats are preparing for how to respond in case that happens.
Democratic lawmakers, wary of various potential disruptions to the midterm elections, conducted closed-door tabletop exercises last week that included the possibility of armed federal personnel dispatched near polling places.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California), who participated in the exercises led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said Democrats are preparing to challenge the administration over any “pretext they would make for this type of deployment — because they would be lies — before those deployments even happen.”
The comments reflect an atmosphere of distrust and a sharp partisan split on election security ahead of a midterm election that will determine which party controls the House and Senate — as the Trump administration has pushed aggressively on election system overhauls.
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Democrats have planned for their own Senate election observer program, coordination with local officials and voting rights advocates, and rapid-response legal planning.
They’ve also introduced measures to prevent election interference, although such legislation has almost no chance of becoming law before the midterm elections.
Padilla, who is helping lead the Senate Democrats’ Election Protection Task Force, introduced an anti-election interference bill last week that extends the statute of limitations to prosecute election interference by “troops” and “armed forces.”
He said his effort is informed in part by Trump’s deployment of federalized troops to Los Angeles last year, which tested the limits of how military forces can be used domestically alongside federal law enforcement.
“The deployment was unlawful, and the courts ruled that over time,” Padilla said in an interview. “The legal precedent is set, but Donald Trump disregards the rule of law far too often, so we’ll have to be prepared, no matter what.”
The 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act generally bars military personnel from performing domestic law enforcement, and federal law makes it a crime punishable by up to five years in prison to deploy “any troops or armed men” to any location where voting is taking place. There is a narrow exception if troops are needed to protect voters or respond to an armed threat — which some Democrats fear Trump could claim.
Senate Democrats plan to use election observers at the polls to monitor and document any inappropriate activity so they can respond in the moment and inform potential action by Congress. In the meantime, Padilla said Democrats are encouraging early voting.
“If you cast your ballot by mail, you don’t have to worry about federal agents at the polls on Election Day,” Padilla said. “We’re reminding people of those options, but nonetheless standing up for people’s right to vote free of intimidation on Election Day, if that’s their choice.”
The Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department, Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security seeking any records that reveal whether the agencies have planned deployments of federal agents or troops around polling places, ballot drop boxes or election offices.
A judge has directed the agencies to begin producing records Friday.
In the wake of inquiries from Democrats to those three departments, the Department of Homeland Security has said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is not planning an aggressive campaign at voting sites during the midterms. Schumer and 11 Senate Democrats sent a letter this week demanding information about the administration’s possible plans.
Democrats already have pointed to a range of recent actions by Trump to justify their fears. He has pushed federal election directives on states, threatened local election officials with prosecution, sought detailed voter and election-worker records, and tied federal funding to changes in state voting practices.
Trump announced in May that he would launch an “Election Integrity Army” and did not rule out sending National Guard or ICE to voting locations. In January, he said he regrets not sending the National Guard to seize election equipment during the 2020 election.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) introduced legislation last month that would require the president to get Congress’s approval before deploying uniformed troops or federal law enforcement. When she asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a hearing in April whether he would deploy troops to polls, he dismissed it as a “gotcha hypothetical.”
Slotkin, who took part in Schumer’s tabletop exercise last week, said participants considered a scenario out of the “authoritarian playbook,” in which a cyberattack, allegations of widespread noncitizen voting or another security incident could be used to justify sending federal forces to polling places.
Having troops or federal agents handle ballots or voting machines could cast doubt on whether the votes remained secure, opening the door to challenges over whether they should be counted.
“What we see, for instance, in Hungary,” Slotkin said, “is a security incident that only federal forces can somehow respond to.”
Slotkin argued that even if troops and agents did not handle voting machines — which could break the chain of custody and call the votes into question — a visible presence could deter people from voting.
“If you tell me that a ton of ICE agents are going to be surrounding polls and that voters have to go run the gauntlet of masked ICE agents, 100% that’s intimidating,” she said.
Republican lawmakers asked by NOTUS to respond to Democratic concerns were largely dismissive, and several on the Senate Armed Services Committee said they had not heard of any such plans from the administration.
“I think the Democrats are fearmongering and trying to create a scenario where people are more concerned than they should be,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), a former state attorney general. “It’s a political game more than anything.”
Partisan distrust and splintering over election administration predates Trump’s return to office. For decades, House Democrats and Republicans jointly dispatched staff to observe ballot counting in potentially contested elections. But Republicans broke with that tradition in 2024, deploying their own observers during voting instead of participating in the bipartisan effort that takes place during counting.
House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R-Wisconsin) said he plans to continue that approach this year, citing the 2024 reelection of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) by a paper-thin margin.
“What we learned from the race of Mariannette Miller-Meeks was that it would be beneficial to be deployed at the time of the election,” Steil said. “So we began that policy when I became chairman.”
Democrats argue the move reflects the broader erosion of trust over election administration. Rep. Joe Morelle (D-New York), the panel’s ranking member, said Republicans’ abandonment of the joint election observer program “breaks 50 years of tradition and precedent.”
“Honestly, there’s not too many Republicans I trust anymore on election security, on making sure that we’re committed to the administration of our elections, and who aren’t willing to allow the president to subvert the process,” Morelle said.
Some of the warnings about the potential use of federal forces during the election are coming from a nonpartisan group of former military lawyers. Retired Maj. Gen. Steven Lepper, of the Former Judge Advocates General Working Group, said the organization has held discussions with multiple congressional offices about the threat and possible legislative safeguards.
But Lepper said that with congressional action to restrict the use of troops at polling places unlikely before the election, the decision to carry out an order to deploy in the midst of an election would ultimately fall on military commanders.
“The unwillingness of Congress to do its job has now placed the burden on military members, on military commanders, to have to either stand up to the president and refuse to obey unlawful orders, or obey unlawful orders and essentially put our military in a position where they’re committing crimes,” Lepper said. “It’s just a shameful situation for our military to be put in.”
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