DHS Says ICE Won’t Be At Polling Stations During Midterms
One of the big worries heading into the midterm elections is whether or not Trump will deploy ICE to polling stations in an effort to intimidate voters. While the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said there were no plans for ICE to be at polling stations during the midterms on a call with state election officials, there are still growing concerns that the federal government will try to exert control over how they’re conducted.
ABC News reports that Heather Honey, deputy assistant secretary for Elections Integrity at the Department of Homeland Security, held a call on Wednesday with election officials from several states. When asked by the California Secretary of State about ICE potentially having a presence at polling locations, Honey called those concerns “disinformation.”
“ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations. ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangers a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action,” a DHS official said in a statement released after the call.
Since this is the Trump administration, it’s hard to take their word at face value. This is an administration built on lies, after all.
Those on the call told ABC News that the first half was fairly routine, before Honey made various suggestions that aligned with the Trump administration’s efforts to control the midterm elections. She made the widely panned suggestion that states hand-count their votes to certify their elections, and also utilize the SAVE database run by DHS. The SAVE database is predominantly used by registered federal, state, and local government agencies to verify the immigration status and U.S. citizenship of applicants seeking benefits or licenses. Honey was unclear about how voter data would be used if it were entered into the database.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, told reporters after the call that she didn’t feel “reassured” that the federal government would protect states’ sovereignty when it comes to conducting elections.
“When we asked about state sovereignty and could the federal government make public statements reinforcing the constitutional principle that the states, not the federal government, were in charge of elections, there was a stunned silence,” Bellows told reporters.
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes was also alarmed by Honey’s silence on the issue. “The vast majority of election, law enforcement, and investigative professionals in these agencies are working hard to maintain secure and accountable American elections. It was deeply unsettling the DOJ and DHS refused to acknowledge that, according to the U.S. Constitution, states run elections in America,” Fontes said in a statement after the call.
The silence was likely due to the Trump administration’s active efforts to exert federal control over elections. On Thursday, it was revealed that President Donald Trump is considering drafting an executive order that would declare a national emergency as a result of unsubstantiated claims that China interfered with the 2020 election. The order would give Trump extraordinary powers over the midterm elections, including the ability to ban mail-in ballots and voting machines.
This man is literally trying everything except doing his job well to gain votes. The cost-of-living crisis is affecting everyone, regardless of which party they vote for. It’s almost as if he did anything, literally anything at all, to address the key issue that won him the 2024 election, he wouldn’t have to cheat to win. Instead, it appears Trump is content to keep watching his approval ratings plummet while selling a fantasy of America that’s entirely at odds with reality.
