President Donald Trump “has no plans” to use the military to steal the elections, according to a letter sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to a Democratic senator.
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In a story reported by ABC’s Ben Siegel, Gen. Dan Caine wrote a letter to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) saying “the American Military is a non-partisan Armed Force.” He continued that “election administration and security remain the fundamental responsibility of state and local officials. The Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections. Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”
Caine added, “I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections.”
In addition to reports that Trump may seize voting machines using the military, there are also widely-reported concerns that Trump will meddle in the elections by deploying ICE or other radical groups to polling places, stopping mail-in ballots and purging voters from the rolls state-shared voter files and information acquired by DOGE.
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“I think there are two things to consider,” Pooja Chaudhuri, Senior Counsel/Deputy Legal Director at Democracy Defenders Fund who specializes in voting rights as well as election law litigation and advocacy, told AlterNet in June. “One is that the election is made up of voters, and so the outcome depends on people turning out to the polls and voting. The problem is … the chilling effect on voters.”
Chaudhuri continued, “When voters hear that ICE may be deployed to the polls, that mail-in voting rules are changing close to the election, a lot of voters might say, ‘I’m just not going to go out and vote.’ That could happen in many different ways. There are vulnerable communities — people may come from mixed-status families — they’re US citizens, but they might decide, “I’m not going to vote.” So one aspect is the chilling effect on voters that all of these actions would have.” In addition to that intimidating factor, Chaudhuri argued the gerrymandering and FBI seizure of Fulton County, GA also could keep voters away from the polls.
“We’re going to see consequences in terms of voters saying, ‘I don’t want the FBI to get my personal ballot in the future,’” Chaudhuri argued. “So, to sum up, I do agree that putting it all together, it does paint an ominous picture.”
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