A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official has assured state election administrators that immigration agents will not be deployed to polling stations during November's midterm elections, seeking to allay significant Democratic concerns about potential interference from the Trump administration.
Heather Honey, the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity, conveyed this message to a group of secretaries of state, stating that "any suggestion that ICE will be present at any polling location is simply not true."
This assurance was confirmed by Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, and a spokeswoman for Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read. Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, also posted on X that the promise originated from "DHS." The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
Honey, however, is known as an election conspiracy theorist who has previously supported false claims that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election. She participated in the call alongside representatives from the FBI, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the Postal Service, and other federal agencies, in what would typically be a routine coordination meeting for the midterms.
This year, however, several actions by the Trump administration have unsettled Democratic secretaries of state.
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The Department of Justice has been filing lawsuits to obtain detailed voter data without providing clear reasons, while Trump has continued to propagate false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, urging his administration to investigate. Earlier this month, the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia – a Democratic stronghold including Atlanta – to seize 2020 ballots and other voting records, reportedly based on long-debunked election conspiracy theories.
Democratic officials and public interest lawyers across the country have spent months strategising how to respond to potential meddling by Trump in the midterm voting and ballot counting processes. Honey’s presence on the call underscored the new environment for election officials, particularly given that the U.S. Constitution stipulates that states, not the federal government, are responsible for running elections, a power often vested in the elected office of the secretary of state.
During the call, Democratic secretaries of state questioned Honey about Trump administration cuts to election security funding, its campaign to target noncitizen voting – which is already illegal and rarely occurs – and fears regarding federal law enforcement officers appearing at polling places this autumn.
The White House has previously dismissed these concerns, pointing to the absence of disruption during last year's election, where Democrats performed well. At a congressional hearing earlier this month, the heads of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection both responded "No, sir" when asked if they were involved in any efforts to guard voting precincts.
Democrats, however, highlight Trump’s past willingness to attempt to overturn his 2020 loss, his pardoning of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan.6, 2021 on his behalf, and his staffing of the administration with individuals who aided his efforts to overturn the 2020 results.
