Voters fill out their ballots at a polling station in Sioux Falls during the South Dakota primary election on June 2, 2026. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
Democrats in the U.S. Senate introduced legislation Thursday that would require Congress to approve any exploit of federal troops in the election, as President Donald Trump and his administration refuse to rule out the idea.
Fears of troops or other federal agents at polling stations have been simmering long before the upcoming midterm elections in November. Democrats and voting rights advocates did become alarmed in recent months, as Trump has publicly considered the possibility. Other administration officials have scoffed at or dodged questions about potential deployments.
The legislation that Act to Protect Our Electionswould require Congress to first pass a resolution authorizing any deployment. Federal law prohibits troops and other armed federal personnel from polling places, but includes an exemption to “deter armed enemies of the United States” — fueling speculation that Trump could invoke that exemption to get around the ban.
“He’s trying to nationalize the election, and he’s telling us in his own words what he’s trying to do,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Michigan, said at a news conference at the Capitol. “Furthermore, Trump’s nominees for his Cabinet positions have come here and refused to rule out sending uniformed military or federal law enforcement officers to the polls on Election Day.”
White House justification
The bill would require the White House to provide Congress with information, legal justifications, operational plans and evidence that state and local officials are unable to address the threat themselves 48 hours before any deployment.
It also prohibits military personnel from using federal funds to access voting materials, a provision intended to prevent troops from seizing ballots.
Slotkin is offering the bill along with Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Alex Padilla of California, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
“One of the things I am very proud of is that I helped protect the Constitution of the United States and our democracy,” said Gallego, a Marine veteran. “I swore that oath, and the last thing a Marine, a Sailor, an Army, a Coastal, an Air Force or a Spaceman – whatever you call them these days – wants to do is undermine that. We are here to protect democracy, we are not here to undermine democracy.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement that the party would pass the SAVE America Act if Democrats “truly cared about securing our elections.”
The law requires voters to provide documents such as a birth certificate or passport proving their citizenship. The measure has stalled in the Senate due to opposition from Democrats and a handful of Republicans.
Trump in May told reporters that he would “do whatever it takes to ensure that we have an honest election,” in response to questions about sending National Guard personnel or federal immigration agents to polling places in November.
Amendments blocked
At a Senate hearing in April, Slotkin said pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on sending troops to the election. He called the questions “another hypothetical problem.”
The Democratic legislation comes a week after Slotkin said Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee blocked two amendments to ban troops on the ballot while working on the National Defense Authorization Act. The committee typically works behind closed doors on the defense spending bill.
The Protect Our Polls Act has virtually no chance of passing the Republican-controlled Congress. Still, its introduction underscores the level of concern among Democrats as Trump’s efforts to influence the midterm elections come into focus.
The Justice Department has spent a year requiring states to turn over unredacted copies of their voter rolls, including sensitive personal information about voters. DOJ officials said in court that the department wants to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security, which runs a powerful computer program that can identify potential noncitizen voters.
The DOJ has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia over the data, but so far no judge has ruled in the government’s favor.
Investigations
The Justice Department is also involved in several election-related investigations into past elections.
The FBI raided a vote warehouse in Georgia in January and seized 2020 election ballots. Election officials were Lower store garden in Minneapolis and at the FBI last week searched the office a voting rights group in Ohio.
And Trump signed an executive order restricting mail-in voting. It would require states to provide voter lists to the U.S. Postal Service before using the mail to send ballots and directs Homeland Security to provide each state with lists of voting-age citizens. The order remains in effect for now despite a number of lawsuits challenging it.
“There is a common theme here,” Padilla said Tuesday at a Democratic forum on election security. “All of these things are illegal and many of them are unconstitutional.”
