Revisiting: Can Federal Troops Be Stationed At The Polls In 2026?

On September 2, 2025, as Trump continued to deploy National Guard troops in American cities and openly blustered about militarizing American streets, I wrote an explainer about the law prohibiting federal troops from being stationed at the polls. When Trump first sent Marines and National Guardsmen into California, we caught the subtext. He was testing the waters. He wanted to see how much he could get away with. Trump already knew he would face accountability at the polls in 2026, even if he didn’t know just how unpopular he would become.

Even though the law prohibits sending troops and armed agents to the polls, concerns linger. As we get closer to the midterm elections, I want to revisit that earlier post with you tonight, especially in light of some recent developments in Maine.

The Bangor, Maine, Daily News reported earlier this week that the Republican nominee for Governor, Bobby Charles, told a group of young Republicans, “I’m going to ask Tom — three or four weeks before the election, maybe three — I’m going to make an appeal for ICE and marshals to be at our voting booths.” He continued, “Do you think the illegals who are being paid money are going to like that?”

Charles was taped. You can listen to the audio—exclusively obtained by the Daily News—here.

“Tom” is a reference to Tom Homan, Trump’s “Border Czar.” Apparently Homan and Charles are pals; Charles says they were on Fox together in the audio. (Homan, you may recall, was reportedly investigated for taking what he thought was a $50,000 cash bribe from a man who was actually an undercover FBI agent. Pam Bondi summarily dropped the investigation early in her tenure as AG.) Homan is decidedly in support of Trump’s anti-immigrant policy. He blamed state and local law enforcement for the federal presence in Minneapolis when he took over from Gregory Bovino after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And Trump, of course, has been working the whole “illegal immigrants voting” narrative, despite the absence of evidence to support it, as a convenient excuse for interfering with the upcoming elections. It’s the basis for his contested executive order to use the Postal Service to control who can get a mail ballot.

So when Homan visited Maine earlier this month, after telling a Maine House representative that he was taking the trip “to meet with the border patrol and the ICE folks … to find out what they need, to get more specifics on what the issues are so we can address them,” it was worth paying attention. Homan said immigration officials want to remove “hundreds of thousands” of people now that the Supreme Court has ruled the administration can do away with temporary protected status. According to Federal data, only 715 of the 1.3 million people currently under TPS reside in Maine, but Homan said, “You're gonna see a lot more enforcement action in Maine, just because of the TPS settlement.” The excuse is thin. As we get closer to the election, it bears watching.

Maybe Charles is just an empty political braggart. But we’ve all watched ICE operate on American streets with disregard for the lives of immigrants and Americans alike.

In similar news, NBC News reported tonight that Wyoming’s Republican Governor Mark Gordon expressed concern over the behavior of DOJ election observers during his state’s primary election, calling it “aggressive” and “irregular.” A Republican county clerk in the state told NBC that after learning of the observers’ presence, she “spoke with a DOJ official in Washington who informed me that the decision to deploy monitors to Wyoming was made on short notice, and an email had been sent to me, but it may have gone to the wrong address.” Surely the administration had no concerns about the outcome of deep red Wyoming primaries. It sounds like a training run, perhaps.

As recently as this May, Trump declined to rule out sending troops or federal agents to the polls, even though that would be a clear violation of federal law. He told a reporter, who asked if he would rule out those steps, that he’d “do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.”

This administration acts first, with no respect for the rule of law, waiting for a court to tell it no before it backs off. We are right to be alarmed about the prospect of incompetent people with bad motives trying to interfere with elections. The good news is that they have been, as Charles was and as DOJ was in Wyoming, so careless about exposing their intent that pro-democracy groups and lawyers are tuned up and ready to protect the vote.

In June 2025, Trump had this to say about his planned military parade and citizens who might protest, using their First Amendment rights: “They will be met with very big force. People that want to protest will be met with big force. I have not heard about a protest but this is people that hate our country. They will be met with heavy force.” At that same time, Trump sent 700 Marines to join National Guard troops in Los Angeles—not because there was insurrection or emergency, but in response to constitutionally protected protests over ICE raids at local workplaces.

As we discussed at the time, police powers are reserved to the states. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the federal government from using the military inside of the domestic United States for law enforcement, absent truly compelling circumstances. Even the Supreme Court agreed, blocking deployments in cases like the one in Illinois. Only in D.C., where local rules give the president greater power, has Trump been able to keep the National Guard on the streets.

One way around the Posse Comitatus Act is the Insurrection Act. When it is invoked by a president, it allows the military to be used for domestic law enforcement, but—and it’s an important caveat—only to restore order. It’s not a permanent or a nationwide takeover. A manufactured excuse by Trump for invoking the Act, short of an actual insurrection, is unlikely to be met with favor by the courts, and lawyers are ready to swing into action at the first sign of a problem. Could it get messy and problematic? This is the Trump administration, so the answer has to be yes, but with the time and resources to plan for it on their side, lawyers are prepared.

If you’re concerned, the best thing you can do is take action. Volunteer to work the election or watch the polls, or support one of the civil rights or legal groups preparing to protect free and fair elections. But don’t give in to the myths that MAGA spreads. Above all else, don’t be convinced, or let those around you be convinced, that you shouldn’t bother to vote because your vote won’t count. Remind your loved ones that no one would try so hard to take their vote away if it wasn’t incredibly important.

Here is some of what I wrote to you last September, as Trump deployed National Guard troops to California using a transparently fake rationale to see if he could make headway in getting Americans to accept the militarization of our streets:

Trump has given every reason to believe he is serious about trying to interfere [with our elections] and that there will be a concerted effort to do so. There are a lot of complicated legal questions involved. Today, we begin the important work of being the sort of citizens the moment demands and educating ourselves about those questions. We will be doing this consistently for the next year, plus.

We start tonight with a look at an important law that prohibits the placement of federal troops at the polls in all but the most extreme emergencies. The bottom line: Trump will not be able to deploy federal or federalized troops at polling places, whether in an effort to intimidate voters or to use them to seize voting machines or for other purposes. This law is not a total inoculation from interference by a president who wants to violate citizens’ voting rights, but it’s one important part of a package of legal protections and strategies we’ll be exploring between now and the election, so we can develop a well-rounded awareness of our rights as Americans and voters.

Before we discuss the law, we should recognize that protecting elections when voting starts will likely have at least three key components:

• Election officials who are prepared to be steadfast in their commitment to letting the people vote and have their votes determine the outcome of the election,

• Lawyers who are prepared to launch suits and go to court in real time, both before and after the election, and

• A well-educated and highly engaged public that is committed to voting and makes it clear they are watching the courts and, specifically, the Supreme Court.

Now, the law. 18 U.S.C. § 592 explicitly prohibits any U.S. civil, military, or naval officer from bringing, keeping, or having control of troops or armed men at any polling place during an election. The statute reads as follows:

Troops at polls

Whoever, being an officer of the Army or Navy, or other person in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or control any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both; and be disqualified from holding any office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States.

Note that this is a criminal provision, but this is also the type of conduct that—if it occurred and couldn’t be resolved— would lead lawyers to immediately seek injunctions in court, allowing elections to continue unimpeded. The law is meant to prevent any domestic political use of the military to influence or intimidate voters.

Since we know Trump likes to poke holes in the rule of law by creating exceptions or making decisions and then claiming no court has the power to “second guess” him, it’s important to note that the “armed enemies” exception is not a loophole for domestic issues or unrest, along the lines Trump has raised in California with ICE raids or with more generalized (but false) complaints about skyrocketing crime. It is meant for armed foreign invasions and is a specific allowance for a national security emergency involving an armed invasion. The phrase "necessary to repel armed enemies" is an extremely narrow and rarely—if ever—applicable exception that allows federal troops at polling places only in the event of an armed invasion by a foreign power.

…

The Constitution creates a system where states, not the federal government, and assuredly not the president, run federal elections along with state and local ones. The Elections Clause, in Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, provides that “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of [choosing] Senators.”

Nor does the law permit Mr. Charles, in Maine, to ask his old friend Tom Homan to send federal law enforcement to the polls to intimidate voters. The provision quoted above, 18 U.S.C. 592 applies to federal law enforcement, just like it does to military troops. Yes, Trump plays fast and loose with the law. He acts first, dares the courts to stop him, and appeals to the conservative majority at the Supreme Court to let him get away with it. But even that Court held firm in 2020. An effort to use troops or law enforcement officers to keep Americans from voting for their elected officials would be met with prompt legal action. For example, the polls can be held open for longer than usual. And although the backlash didn’t last long enough to create permanent accountability, there was immediate backlash against Trump following the events of January 6, 2021. There is every reason to believe that if he tries to send troops to the polls, Americans will respond by taking the most powerful act any of us can on behalf of democracy: voting.

Thanks for being here with me at Civil Discourse. If you think civics education is important, I hope you’ll share this information about the law with your friends and become a subscriber if you aren’t already part of this community. The worst form of voter suppression is the kind that tries to convince you your vote doesn’t count and won’t be counted, so you shouldn’t bother. That’s what this is about, whether it’s aggressive poll watchers or threats of troops or law enforcement at the polls, it’s all about intimidating voters. Don’t be intimidated.

We’re in this together,

Joyce