Slotkin said the legislation aims to prevent Trump from “weaponizing our military and armed federal officers to interfere in our elections.” The bill, titled the Protect Our Polls Act, would require the president to obtain approval from Congress before deploying uniformed military personnel or federal law enforcement agents to any polling site during an election.
Under the proposed legislation, the administration would have to provide at least 48 hours’ notice to lawmakers, detailed intelligence and legal justification for the deployment, and evidence demonstrating that a state is incapable of addressing the threat on its own. The bill covers both uniformed military and federal law enforcement agencies.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former NASA astronaut and Navy captain, said in a statement that federal law has protected polling places from military interference “since the Civil War for a reason.” He added, “President Trump has made clear he thinks he can ignore those limits. We’re making sure he can’t.”
Existing federal and state statutes already prohibit the deployment of troops or armed federal agents at polling stations except “to repel armed enemies of the United States,” according to the UPI report.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NBC that if Democrats were serious about election security, they would pass the SAVE America Act, which she described as including “commonsense election integrity measures supported by the vast majority of Americans.”
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in March that he would not send agents to polling places without good reason. “The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation,” Mullin said. “There will be a reason for us to be there, and it’ll be known why we’re there.”