President Donald Trump listens during a cabinet meeting, Friday, July 31, 2026, at Camp David, the presidential retreat, near Thurmont, Md. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
The Trump administration is pursuing an "unlawful" policy of threatening to send armed federal agents to polling locations in violation of federal law, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
Over the past few months, Trump administration officials throughout the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the FBI have issued statements suggesting such agents might be sent into polling places for the upcoming midterm elections, the lawsuit notes.
In a 29-page complaint, several Democratic Party groups led by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) allege these law enforcement agency statements amount to a "preview" of "the existence of the Polling Place Policy." That policy, the plaintiffs say, is forcing them "to compete in unlawfully structured elections."
"Notwithstanding federal law, and the traditional sanctity afforded to polling places, the Trump Administration has made clear by word and deed over the past year that it asserts the authority to dispatch armed officers to active polling locations," the lawsuit reads.
While the plaintiffs do not outright say the government has solidified any such plans to send armed agents to polling locations, the lawsuit claims the mere threat violates both the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and, subsequently, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
"[D]ispatching armed federal agents to the polls—or even threatening to do so—is forbidden by federal law," the lawsuit says. "This is because voters need not actually be arrested, questioned, or even approached in order for such threats to intimidate them from exercising the franchise."
The filing goes on:
For many lawful American voters, the sight of masked, armed federal agents in a polling-place parking lot is enough to send them home or make them think twice about casting a ballot at all. For many others, the mere prospect of such an encounter will keep them from heading to the polls. And because no voter can know in advance whether agents will be waiting at his or her polling place when they arrive to cast a ballot, the Polling Place Policy chills voting everywhere, not only where ICE and FBI agents actually appear.
The lawsuit also notes that actually sending armed personnel or military troops to the polls would be a direct violation of a statute that expressly prohibits such action unless such an armed presence is "necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States."
The plaintiffs insist no such action is necessary but point to comments by Trump himself about doing "anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections" as proof of the plan. The plaintiffs also single out comments from DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin that federal agents have the authority to police polling places "if there was a specific threat for them to be there."
The upshot of such comments is that the polling place policy "falls hardest on voters most likely to fear an encounter with immigration enforcement," including naturalized citizens, the lawsuit alleges.
"The Polling Place Policy, under which armed federal officers may be sent to polls, is objectively likely to intimidate voters from voting or attempting to vote, or from urging or aiding others in voting," the lawsuit goes on. "It also threatens and coerces voters who plan to cast their ballot in person at a polling place, forcing some to abandon those plans entirely."
The lawsuit seeks an injunction that bars the Trump administration from carrying out the policy — with a laundry list of potentially verboten behavior the plaintiffs would have a court proscribe.
To that end, the DSCC wants a judge to block federal law enforcement from "operating or carrying weapons in the vicinity of open polling places, including drop boxes, curbside voting locations, and any similar places where votes are taken, collected, received, counted, or certified during early voting periods, on election day itself."
The plaintiffs also want a judge to prohibit the presence of such openly carried weapons "during any post-election day ballot curing period" and effectively ask for a gag order so that the government cannot threaten "to engage in any such action."
The lawsuit additionally seeks to have the policy declared unlawful and "set aside." The latter request is a specific form of relief under the APA, which effectively nullifies and vacates an agency action.
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