The NAACP has asked federal courts to stop the Trump administration from putting armed federal agents at polling places, and with Election Day on Nov. 3, no judge has ruled.
The civil rights group says the aim is to frighten Black voters and other voters of color. “Using federal law enforcement as a scare tactic to target and intimidate Black communities is illegal,” Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said when a coalition including the NAACP and the National Urban League sued on Sept. 18. The suit argues that the threat violates Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which bars intimidation, threats and coercion aimed at voters. It asks for an order prohibiting the use of law enforcement at or around polling places in the midterms.
On Oct. 16 the NAACP filed a second suit in federal court in Washington, this one aimed at the Justice Department’s plan to deploy about 1,000 election monitors nationwide. “There is no federal statute that gives Defendants the authority to turn polling places into interrogation rooms,” the filing says. Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, said the department “is abusing its power and authority by deploying ‘monitors’ to discourage people from voting.”
What the administration says
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has authority to go to polls “if there’s a threat to the location or if they’re serving a warrant.” He has also said: “The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation.” The Justice Department has described its monitoring as “consistent with longstanding practice.”
Local election officials are not waiting. Maureen Coffey, an Arlington County, Virginia, official, told Scripps News: “I think anyone carrying a weapon in a polling location is going to be inherently intimidating, particularly if they have on the badge of the United States government.” Federal law bars “armed men at any place where a general or special election is held,” with a narrow exception for repelling armed enemies of the United States. The statute dates to the aftermath of the Civil War, when armed men were used to keep Black Southerners from the ballot box.
Scripps reviewed incidents of federal agents turning up at voting sites and found no deliberate attempt to interfere with an election. In every case the agents were on unrelated business. In Florida, Customs and Border Protection stopped a car in a polling-place parking lot. In California, ICE agents arrested a man near a ballot drop-off on a college campus. In Minnesota, Homeland Security agents served subpoenas at election locations three times in a year, twice at early-voting sites.
Those cases are the plaintiffs’ point. Whatever the intent, the agents were there, and the administration has not ruled out more.
Where the cases stand
Arlington County, Denver and other civil rights groups have filed their own suits asking courts to confirm that the armed-men ban applies to ICE and Homeland Security agents. A federal judge in Washington ruled Friday that three of the cases should be consolidated. That is a procedural step, not a decision on the merits.
In-person voting has already begun in many states. The Justice Department has said it will send observers to Adams County, Colorado, on Election Day.
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