EDITORIAL: ICE at the Polls, or The Art of Killing Democracy with a Federal Badge

Maxime Marquette

2026-06-26 22:14:07

A Call for Intimidation Disguised as the Fight Against Fraud

Steve Bannon is no fringe figure. He is the intellectual architect of a faction within the MAGA movement that no longer hides its intentions. When he declares on his podcast that ICE agents stationed at airports are “perfect training for the fall of 2026,” he’s not joking. He’s describing an operation. He’s anticipating a deployment. And he’s doing it publicly, in a media space that serves as a sounding board for a militant base willing to do anything to impose its vision of America. The premise is false: voting by non-citizens is, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, “already illegal and vanishingly rare.” But that doesn’t matter. The premise is merely a pretext. What matters is the effect.

The mechanism is well-oiled: a lie is spread—massive fraud by non-citizens—a draconian measure is justified—the presence of ICE at the polls—and a climate is created where voting becomes dangerous, or at least perceived as such, for millions of Americans who have undocumented family members, who have neighbors in an irregular status, who know that the line between a naturalized citizen and a potential ICE target is, in this administration’s practice, as blurred as it is convenient.

The White House and the Art of Non-Denial

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt attempted a semantic sleight of hand following Bannon’s statements in February 2026: “I can’t assure you that an ICE agent won’t be present at a polling site in November… but I can say that I haven’t heard the president mention any official plans to position ICE outside polling locations.” ” Translation: We have no official plan, but we’re not promising anything. This non-denial is itself a political act. It maintains ambiguity. It leaves vulnerable communities in a state of uncertainty. It serves exactly the intended purpose: the psychological suppression of the vote, without ever crossing the visible red line.

In June 2026, the situation worsened further. Mullin, now head of DHS, fanned the flames himself. During his confirmation hearing, he had already stated that ICE “could be deployed to polling places in the event of a specific threat.” Then, on June 14, he told Kasie Hunt “No”—refusing to rule out an ICE presence. The line has shifted. And every millimeter of this retreat fuels the fear machine.

I find it telling that the administration is incapable of uttering a simple sentence: “ICE will not be at the polls in November.” Three words would be enough to reassure millions of voters. The fact that they don’t say them is no slip of the tongue. It’s a strategic choice. And it is this choice that strikes me as the most reprehensible.

What the law says—and what the government prefers to ignore

A 160-year-old ban

Yet U.S. law is clear. The law prohibiting the presence of armed federal agents in or near polling places has been in place since the Civil War, since 1865. It is not new. It is not ambiguous. According to the Brennan Center, the federal statute explicitly prohibits the deployment of “troops or armed men at any place where an election is held,” except in extreme circumstances of war or rebellion. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which has no role in enforcing election laws. Sending ICE agents to polling places is therefore not only politically problematic—it is illegal.

The Brennan Center further notes that even the mere presence of ICE agents near a polling place can constitute a form of voter intimidation, which is prohibited by both federal law and state statutes. It also points out that the courts have expedited procedures to prevent any election disruption or voter intimidation. This robust legal framework provides protection—but it is only effective if it is enforced, and if the institutions responsible for enforcing it are not themselves compromised.

Mullin and a Past That Doesn’t Lie

The fact that Markwayne Mullin is now head of DHS is no coincidence. On January 2, 2021, this Oklahoma senator posted on social media that he would not be able to certify the Electoral College results. Four days later, during the certification process that was interrupted by the storming of the Capitol, he was among the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted against certifying the results. In other words, the man now tasked with protecting U.S. elections is someone who has, through his actions, demonstrated that he was willing to contest them when the results did not suit his side. NPR reported these facts in an article dated June 16, 2026.

In this context, the question is not merely whether ICE will be physically present at the polls. The question is whether federal institutions are still capable of protecting the vote—or whether they have become an instrument of its suppression.

There is a painful irony in seeing a man who refused to certify a legitimate election now at the helm of the department supposed to ensure its security. I don’t know how to describe this other than as a premeditated institutional disaster.

The Deterrent Effect: How Fear Replaces Violence

Statistics on Fear in 2026

Figures released by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism in June 2026 paint an alarming picture of American democracy. 84% of Americans believe that political violence is a real problem in the country. More than 70% think that another event like the one on January 6 is possible. Nearly 70% report feeling afraid or nervous about participating in at least one routine political activity—voting, putting up a campaign sign, or discussing candidates. And 33% of Americans say they are very concerned about future raids by ICE. This is no longer a minority. It is one-third of the country.

These figures illustrate the success of a strategy of electoral psychological terrorism. There’s no need to station uniformed agents outside every polling place to suppress thousands of votes. All it takes is not ruling out that possibility. All it takes is for the rumor to circulate, for fear to spread, and for the most vulnerable communities to weigh the risk and decide that voting isn’t worth it. That is the multiplier effect of sustained ambiguity.

Communities on the Front Lines

It is immigrant, Latino, Black, and mixed-status communities that bear the most direct brunt of this strategy. According to the GPAHE survey, more than one in five voters in Black and Latino communities say they would leave the polling place without voting if intimidated. Protect Democracy emphasizes that the risk is particularly high for naturalized citizens who, despite having full voting rights, fear being targeted, mistaken for undocumented individuals, or arrested by federal agents who have no training in voting rights. This fear is not irrational. It is rooted in months of arrests, raids in public places, and reports of abuse by ICE agents across the country.

Democracy is not just a voting system. It is a culture, a sense of security, a conviction that the act of voting does not put you in danger. When that conviction crumbles among a segment of the population, the legitimacy of the entire outcome is undermined.

I’m thinking of mixed-status families—a naturalized parent, a child born here, an undocumented uncle—who will have to weigh whether voting is worth the risk of running into an ICE agent that day. This dilemma should never exist in a functioning democracy. And the fact that it does is a testament to a collective moral failure.

Democratic States Strike Back: A Preventive Legal War

California, Colorado, Connecticut: The States Take the Lead

Faced with inaction or ambiguity from Washington, several Democratic-led states have decided to take the initiative. A CNN article from June 20, 2026, takes stock of this preemptive legislative push. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law prohibiting unauthorized access to voter rolls or voting machines without a court order. In Colorado, a law establishes a 100-foot buffer zone around polling places and ballot drop boxes, making any interference within that perimeter illegal. In Connecticut, a new legal provision, effective July 1, 2026, broadly prohibits law enforcement from being within 250 feet of a polling place, ballot drop box, or vote-counting center without authorization from election officials.

These measures are not merely legal safeguards. They are political statements. They assert that states have primary responsibility for their elections, and that they will not allow the federal government—whatever its ambitions—to take control of them. As Justin Levitt, an expert quoted by CNN, puts it: what’s different now is that “the president is trying to act outside of federal law and his powers.”

Prosecutors Taking a Stand

The organization Common Cause reports, in a position paper published on June 16, 2026, that a coalition of district attorneys across the country has pledged to prosecute any federal official who attempts to intimidate voters in their districts. The message is unequivocal: “Federal law makes voter intimidation a crime.” ” Earlier in May 2026, Politico reported that Democratic district attorneys had formed a formal coalition, noting that it included, among others, the Hennepin County District Attorney in Minnesota, who had previously filed charges against an ICE agent for a shooting that occurred during an immigration raid.

It is a troubling yet revealing duality: on one hand, a federal government that maintains ambiguity about its presence at the polls. On the other, states and prosecutors building a defensive framework to protect the vote. American democracy is fighting against itself to survive those who govern it.

It is both reassuring and deeply troubling to see that the defense of democracy now rests on county prosecutors rather than federal institutions. It is proof that the system of checks and balances still works—but at what cost, and for how long?

The Election Data War: When ICE Targets Voter Lists

Texas and North Carolina: Civic Oversight

The threat isn’t limited to physical presence at the polls. Axios reported on June 13, 2026, that ICE was directly accessing voter registration databases in Texas and North Carolina. This marks a new low. Using voter rolls—which contain personal information on millions of citizens—for immigration enforcement purposes turns a civic act into potential targeting data. It amounts to saying: if you register to vote, you could end up in our database.

This is not hypothetical. The Brennan Center reported on June 8, 2026, that three federal courts had rejected the Department of Justice’s attempts to obtain the states’ complete voter registration lists, which contain confidential information such as driver’s license numbers. The DOJ had sued 24 states to enforce compliance. Eleven states had agreed. The legal battle is intense, and the stakes are clear: who can access voter data, and for what purposes.

The Infrastructure of Fear

In its June 16, 2026, article, NPR describes a radically transformed electoral landscape. Many local election officials told NPR that they are actively discouraging their counties from sharing data with the federal government. Matt Crane, Colorado’s election official, was particularly blunt: “I don’t trust how the administration is utilizing that data. I doubt their ability to keep it confidential. Therefore, I cannot, in good conscience, recommend that any of my counties collaborate with them at this time.” This kind of breach of trust between levels of government has no recent precedent in American electoral history.

At the same time, CISA, the federal cybersecurity agency that had historically played a central role in securing elections, has seen a large portion of its election security experts leave or be dismissed. Its funding for the EI-ISAC, the election threat intelligence sharing center, was cut off in 2025. And no DHS representatives will participate in the virtual situation rooms planned for Election Day.

The administration is dismantling election protection structures with one hand, while with the other, it refuses to bar its own agents from polling places. This is not incompetence. It is a coherent strategy. And that coherence is what is most frightening.

Mullin: A Secretary of Homeland Security with a Telling Past

January 6 and the Art of Revisionism

Markwayne Mullin’s electoral history is worth a closer look. In its June 16, 2026, article, NPR notes that the current Secretary of Homeland Security was among the 147 Republican representatives who voted on January 6, 2021, against certifying the election results—the same day that thousands of his supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to physically stop that very certification. A few days earlier, he had posted on social media that there was “no way” to certify the Electoral College. This is not an anecdote. It is his track record.

Appointing a man with this track record to head the department responsible for election security is a decision that speaks for itself. It says: we do not trust our own elections. It says: we reserve the right to challenge them again if the results do not suit us. And it says, implicitly, to all those who might vote against us: we are watching you.

Mullin’s Confirmation and the Signal It Sends

During his Senate confirmation hearing in March 2026, Mullin had already indicated that ICE agents might be present at polling places in the event of a “specific threat.” Then, during his June 14 interview on CNN, he reinforced this position by refusing to rule out any such presence. Meanwhile, Congress had passed the Secure America Act—signed by Trump on June 10, 2026—a $70 billion measure that funds ICE and Customs and Border Protection through fiscal year 2029. ICE has never had more resources. And its missions have never been so vague.

Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, in a letter to Mullin dated June 17, 2026, summed up the issue with surgical precision: “Even the perceived presence of immigration enforcement personnel near polling places, especially in communities with large immigrant or mixed-status populations, could deter lawful voter participation and undermine confidence in the fair and impartial administration of elections.” ” He requested a response by June 30, 2026. You can bet that this response will not be the firm guarantee that 330 million Americans deserve to hear.

Krishnamoorthi did what a democratic leader should do: demand explicit, written guarantees before it’s too late. That’s not excessive. It’s the bare minimum. And the fact that this seems heroic in the current context speaks volumes about the state of American democracy in 2026.

Trump and the Constant Temptation of Imaginary Fraud

The Founding Lie and Its Consequences

All of this rests on a lie. Voting by non-citizens—repeated ad nauseam by Trump and his allies as a justification for all their actions—is vanishingly rare, a term used by the Brennan Center and echoed by all independent election analysis organizations. States have multiple verification systems in place to ensure that only citizens vote. The myth of widespread fraud has been debunked by dozens of studies, court rulings, and the results of audits conducted in contested states after 2020. Fox News, in fact, paid $787 million in damages to Dominion Voting Systems for repeating false allegations about the elections. But repeating the lie is enough to entrench it.

President Trump, when asked in late May 2026 as he was leaving the White House for a state visit to China, was blunt on the issue: “I would do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.” ” Put bluntly, this means: I reserve the right to do whatever it takes. This phrase, repeated every time he is asked about federal agents at the polls, is the signal his supporters are waiting for and his opponents dread.

Executive Orders and the War on Mail-In Voting

At the same time, the Trump administration has signed executive orders aimed at restricting mail-in voting, which has been portrayed—without evidence—as a vehicle for widespread fraud. The administration has also seized documents related to the 2020 election in the largest counties in Georgia and Arizona. The DOJ sued 24 states to gain access to their voter registration lists. In Riverside County, California, 650,000 ballots from a special election were seized by Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco—before the California Supreme Court halted the operation and ordered the ballots to be preserved. CNN reported on June 20, 2026, that Democratic states are taking urgent action to address this systemic threat.

This is no longer a matter of electoral politics. It is a matter of institutional survival. And the fact that this is happening in the United States of America—the world’s oldest constitutional democracy, the model that the West has sought to export everywhere—gives the situation a global dimension that cannot be underestimated.

When the country that presented democracy to the world as its most precious export begins to undermine its own ballot boxes, something fundamental breaks—not only in America, but in the minds of all those who, from Kyiv to Taipei to Paris, look to Washington to see whether democracy is still worth defending.

International Law and the Growing Sense of Shame

What the World Is Watching

Imagine for a moment the international community’s reaction if Russia, China, or Iran announced that they could not rule out the presence of security forces—immigration agents, in this case—in or near their polling stations. There would be immediate talk of fraud, dictatorship, and sham elections. International observers would be demanded. Sanctions would be considered. And yet, in the United States in 2026, this situation is presented as a normal democratic debate between political parties.

There is a monumental hypocrisy in this discrepancy that our allies see all too clearly. European democracies—which have supported Ukraine against Russian electoral maneuvers and fought against Chinese interference in their democratic processes—are now watching Washington with growing concern. When America doubts itself, when its institutions are weaponized against its own citizens, the West loses its center of gravity. And its adversaries—Moscow, Beijing, Tehran—rejoice.

American Credibility at Stake

America has always drawn part of its moral authority from its ability to hold free and fair elections. This is what allowed it to criticize Russian elections, to point the finger at rigged elections in Venezuela, and to defend Taiwan in the face of pressure from Beijing. If the November 2026 midterm elections take place amid a climate of documented federal intimidation, if entire communities stay home out of fear of ICE agents, if states have to pass emergency laws to protect their ballot boxes from their own federal government—then America will permanently lose the moral right to lecture the rest of the world on democracy.

And that, my friends, is a geostrategic defeat that Vladimir Putin savors every morning with his coffee. It is what Xi Jinping’s generals note in their analyses. The erosion of American democracy is, for the world’s autocrats, the greatest gift of all—and it is being handed to them for free, from within.

I have no doubt that the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries are closely monitoring every statement by Mullin, every refusal by the White House to provide assurances. They’re feeding these images into their propaganda machines. They’re projecting them across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East to demonstrate that American democracy is just as manipulable as any other system. And it’s working.

The Resilience of Counter-Powers: What Still Endures

The Courts Are Holding Their Ground

Despite the pressure, U.S. judicial institutions continue, for now, to fulfill their role. The Brennan Center reported on June 8, 2026, that three federal courts had rejected the DOJ’s attempts to obtain the states’ complete voter registration lists. The Supreme Court itself recently ruled that the Trump administration could not federalize National Guard troops during a DHS operation in Chicago, underscoring the legal constraints on any militarized deployment. These decisions serve as a bulwark. They are not permanent, but they hold for now.

Protect Democracy points out that the courts “have processes to rule quickly to prevent election disruptions or voter intimidation.” And that any voter, election official, or poll worker who is a victim of intimidation can seek legal recourse. These remedies exist. They are real. But for them to be effective, citizens must know their rights, have access to lawyers, and be able to fight in court while an election is underway. For the most vulnerable communities, this is not a given.

Civil Society on the Front Lines

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the situation in the United States in the summer of 2026 is the extraordinary mobilization of civil society. Organizations such as the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, Election Protection, and Protect Democracy are coordinating training sessions, distributing resources, training election observers, and maintaining emergency hotlines. District attorneys are forming coalitions. States are passing emergency laws. Ordinary citizens are learning how to film interactions with federal agents and report instances of intimidation.

This is a democracy defending itself, block by block, county by county. It is both admirable and terribly revealing of the state of the American democratic ideal when it must fight not against external enemies, but against its own federal government.

I find something deeply moving in this civic resistance—ordinary people learning to document abuses, man hotlines, and accompany their neighbors to the polls because they’re afraid to go alone. This is democracy at its most visceral. And it’s also proof that fear hasn’t won yet.

Trump, a Necessary Evil: The Criticism That Remains Possible

What Justifies a Firm Stance—and What No Longer Does

Let’s be honest about what the Trump administration has sometimes done right, even if it’s hard to admit. Its firm stance against China’s expansionist ambitions, its economic pressure on Iran, and its military support for certain strategic allies—all of this is part of a strategy to defend Western interests that, at its core, isn’t unreasonable. A strong West—one that doesn’t apologize for its existence and that puts pressure on its rivals—is what the democratic world needs in the face of Moscow and Beijing. In this regard, Trump has at times—at times—served Western strategic interests, even if his methods were chaotic and his motivations questionable.

But there is a line. That line is democracy itself. One can accept Trump as an imperfect tool of international realpolitik. We cannot accept him using the machinery of the federal government to discourage citizens from voting. This is no longer aggressive foreign policy. It is no longer haphazard populism. It is a direct assault on the fundamental democratic contract. And on this point, there can be no compromise, no “necessary evil” that holds water.

The red line we cannot allow to be crossed

The intimidation of voters by federal forces is an absolute red line for any self-respecting democracy. This is not a partisan issue. It is not a matter of immigration policy. It is a matter of the survival of the liberal democratic order—the very same order that the West has defended for 80 years since the end of World War II, since the bloody lessons of fascism and Soviet totalitarianism. Thousands of Allied soldiers died so that citizens could vote freely, without fear, without armed personnel monitoring their choices.

Allowing ICE agents to lurk around polling places, allowing ambiguity to take hold, allowing entire communities to decide not to vote out of fear of the federal government—that is a betrayal of that sacrifice. And this is not an ideological stance: it is the minimum requirement for a legitimate political system.

I support the West’s firm stance against Russia, China, and Iran. I support governments that dare to defend their interests. But I cannot support a government that uses fear as a tool to suppress the vote. These two things are not compatible. One is politics. The other is tyranny.

Historical Memory: Precedents That Send a Chill Down Your Spine

From Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Laws

The use of armed forces or federal agents to discourage certain populations from voting is not unprecedented in American history. After the Civil War, during the Reconstruction era, white supremacist groups used exactly this method—intimidating presence, threats, violence—to prevent newly emancipated Black Americans from exercising their right to vote. The Jim Crow laws institutionalized this suppression for a century. It was precisely against this history that the civil rights movement fought in the 1960s, and it was for this reason that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted.

History never repeats itself exactly. ICE agents are not paramilitary groups. The legal situation is different. But the psychological mechanism is identical: using the fear of an armed presence to deter specific populations from voting. And when the organization Protect Democracy writes that the intended effect is to intimidate “particularly naturalized citizens and communities of color,” it becomes clear that the targeting is not random.

January 6 as a Dress Rehearsal

January 6, 2021, showed that certain sectors of the MAGA movement were prepared to use physical violence to prevent the certification of election results. That assault failed. But as the GPAHE investigation notes, more than 70% of Americans believe that a similar event could happen again. The 2021 attempt was not an isolated incident: it was a sign of what some people are willing to do when the results do not suit them.

The potential presence of ICE at the polls fits into this continuum. It is not the direct violence of January 6. It is something more insidious: the preventive violence of fear, wielded even before the first ballot is cast. It is about wanting to win the election before it takes place, by ensuring that certain voters do not participate.

Between January 6, 2021, and the threat of ICE at the polls in November 2026, there is a continuity of method that I cannot help but see. A democracy that survived the physical assault on the Capitol must now survive the psychological assault on its voters. Both are attacks on the same thing: freedom of choice.

What November 2026 Will Say About Us

An election that will be an existential test

The November 2026 midterm elections are no ordinary election. They will take place against a backdrop of institutional tension unprecedented since the Civil War: a federal government that refuses to bar its agents from polling places, states passing emergency laws to protect their ballot boxes, prosecutors forming coalitions against intimidation, and millions of voters weighing whether voting is worth the risk. The outcome of these elections will determine control of Congress. And that control will determine whether or not Congress can check, limit, and counterbalance the Trump administration’s executive power for the next two years.

The stakes, therefore, are immense. And the strategy of intimidation, if it succeeds in suppressing enough votes in competitive districts, can decisively influence the outcome—without ever leaving direct evidence of criminal intent. That is the cold beauty of psychological voter suppression: it is effective precisely because it is difficult to prove, prosecute, or quantify.

The Choice America Faces

There is, however, one thing the fearmongers have failed to account for: anger. The GPAHE survey shows that nearly 70% of Americans are afraid to participate in political activities—but they also have a growing awareness of what is at stake. Democratic states are not just fighting for their own voters: they are fighting for a principle. Prosecutors who are committed to prosecuting intimidators aren’t just upholding the law: they’re engaging in democratic politics in the noblest sense. And the ordinary citizens who plan to accompany their neighbors to the polls, to film, to bear witness, to resist—they are the last line of defense for American democracy.

The world is watching. The West needs America to hold firm. Not a perfect America—there is no such thing as a perfect America. But an America that, despite everything, continues to believe that every vote counts, that every citizen has the right to vote without fear, and that elections are not a formality but the foundation of the legitimacy of power.

I don’t know what November will bring. No one does. But I know this: if millions of voters stay away from the polls because they’re afraid of federal agents, something irreparable will have happened. Not just for America—for everyone around the world who looks to it as a beacon. That beacon cannot be extinguished. Not like this. Not because of this.

Conclusion: The right to vote freely can never be taken for granted

The Constant Threat and the Need for Vigilance

The history of democracy is the story of a never-ending struggle. The right to vote, in America as elsewhere, was won through pain, bloodshed, and decades of struggle. It is not a given. It is not automatic. It must be defended, generation after generation, against those who, for various reasons—ideological, electioneering, or authoritarian—prefer that certain citizens not vote. The threat of deploying ICE to polling places is nothing new in this long history. But it takes on a particular significance in 2026, because it comes from the government itself, armed with federal resources and legitimized by anti-fraud rhetoric that its own judicial allies have refuted.

Vigilance is the only response. Vigilance on the part of states that enact legislation. Vigilance on the part of prosecutors who take a stand. Vigilance on the part of civic organizations that educate, protect, and document. And vigilance on the part of voters themselves, who must understand that voting in November 2026, in this context, is an act of democratic resistance as much as it is an ordinary civic duty.

What the West Must Tell Itself

The West cannot defend democracy in Kyiv, Taipei, or Tbilisi if it allows it to erode in Washington. This is not a metaphor. It is a strategic reality. The credibility of liberal democracies rests on their ability to practice what they preach. If the United States goes into the November 2026 elections with a reputation for federal electoral intimidation, the message sent to the world’s autocrats is simple: “You’ve won.” That message cannot be sent. It must not be sent.

In this sense, the November 2026 election will be much more than just a midterm election. It will be a referendum on America’s ability to remain true to itself: an imperfect, noisy, contradictory democracy—but a democracy nonetheless. A democracy where every citizen can vote without fear that the federal government will view them with hostility. This absolute minimum must be preserved. And if the Trump administration refuses to guarantee it, it is up to American society as a whole—its states, its judges, its prosecutors, its citizens—to preserve it in its stead.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist