Pentagon says it will respond directly to Slotkin
Washington — Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday to confirm that the U.S. military will not be deployed to polling places or used to seize election materials during November’s midterm elections, as part of broader Democratic concerns about possible armed-forces involvement in the vote.
“I’d ask you to confirm a simple statement: the Department of Defense will not send Federal troops to the polls or to seize election materials of any kind,” Slotkin wrote in letters Tuesday to Hegseth and to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Pentagon said in an email that it will respond directly to Slotkin, as it does with all congressional correspondence. The Joint Chiefs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Slotkin told The Associated Press that President Donald Trump has been laying the groundwork to claim the midterms were stolen. She pointed to Trump’s past contemplation of using the military to seize voting machines after his 2020 loss and to his deployment of the National Guard to cities against the wishes of Democratic leaders.
She also cited Trump’s deployment of active-duty Marines to Los Angeles during his immigration enforcement operations in 2025 as part of the pattern she said underlies her concerns about military involvement in the election.