Three lawsuits seek to bar armed federal agents from polling places

On Election Day, three lawsuits filed since September ask federal courts to bar armed federal agents from polling places, and coverage of the filings reports no ruling in any of them.

The first was filed Sept. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the League of United Latin American Citizens, Common Cause, UnidosUS and the City and County of Denver, according to a Common Cause statement. Democracy Forward and the Public Rights Project represent them. The defendants include the Department of Homeland Security, its secretary Markwayne Mullin, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its acting director, David Venturella, Denver7 reported.

The plaintiffs say the administration has adopted what they call a “Polling Place Policy” meant to intimidate voters. They ask the court to declare it unlawful, block it, and bar federal officers from polling places except to repel armed enemies of the United States. Their main argument rests on 18 U.S.C. § 592, a Civil War-era statute that bars federal officials from stationing armed men at places where an election is held, Democracy Docket reported. Violations carry fines, imprisonment and disqualification from holding office.

A second suit followed in late September. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries sued DHS, ICE, the FBI and their leaders, according to a second report. Elias Law Group represents them. They cite the same statute, Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which bars voter intimidation, and the Administrative Procedure Act. They ask for an order barring armed officers near open polling places, including drop boxes and curbside voting sites, from the start of early voting through post-election ballot curing.

The complaint says the administration “stand[s] willing and able to send agents into polling places.” It also argues that “no voter can know in advance whether agents will be waiting at his or her polling place,” and that the Polling Place Policy “chills voting everywhere, not only where ICE and FBI agents actually appear.”

The third suit was brought by the Arlington County Board in Virginia, WHRO reported on Oct. 23. It asks a court to declare the administration’s polling place policies unlawful and keep ICE and FBI agents away from voters. Board member Susan Cunningham cited an 1865 federal law she called “Troops at Polls.” Legal expert Rich Kelsey told WHRO he does not see how a judge could rule in the county’s favor without a viable allegation that ICE intends to use illegal intimidation tactics.

The plaintiffs in the first suit cite statements by administration officials. They point to a February comment by then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that she could not “guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November.” They also cite a March question from Todd Blanche, then a Justice Department official and now attorney general: “Why is there objection to sending ICE officers to polling places?” Democracy Docket reported that Mullin said earlier in September that ICE agents could make arrests at polling places, and that FBI Director Kash Patel told a Senate panel under oath that the suggestion he would not send agents to the polls was “just another lie.”

DHS denies that a polling place policy exists. A DHS spokesperson told Denver7 that “ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action.” Mullin said ICE would be at polling places only if “there is a threat to that polling place” or if agents were serving a warrant on someone they had been tracking.

The Denver plaintiffs allege that ICE has carried out enforcement at polling places in Texas, California and New York. Democracy Docket reported that earlier in 2026, ICE agents made arrests and approached suspects at polls in San Antonio and in Ventura County, California, and that in June two agents confronted a poll worker in Syracuse, New York, about her online comments about ICE.

Denver’s clerk, Paul López, has begun training election staff to de-escalate encounters with federal agents and to identify them when they are not in uniform. He told Denver7 that it would be illegal for agents to be there, that he would ask them to leave, and that if they did not, “we’re going to arrest them and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.” The complaint says rumors of armed agents are making it harder to recruit poll workers.

Mayor Mike Johnston said in the plaintiffs’ statement that stationing ICE agents near polling places “is only meant to scare people and suppress votes.”

A separate case by the NAACP did reach a ruling. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton rejected the group’s emergency request to bar the Justice Department from using federal law enforcement as poll monitors, Democracy Docket reported on Nov. 3. The NAACP sued last month, arguing the monitoring plan violates Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act. Walton wrote that he found the NAACP’s allegations of intimidation “concerning” at the outset but was “assuaged” by the government’s representations in court.

At Monday’s hearing, Justice Department attorney Kathryn Barragan told Walton that “the defendants would have no problem with an injunction that would require DOJ to take reasonable efforts to exclude sworn officers from serving as polling monitors,” Democracy Docket reported. Walton ordered the defendants to comply with their counsel’s concession that the monitors will be administrative or clerical personnel, will not be in uniform, will not be armed and will not have the power to make arrests. He also ordered the administration to give the court more information on the program.