Following Operation Metro Surge, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said the top question he gets from people all over the state about the upcoming midterm election is: What happens if ICE shows up at the polls?
Simon’s office has been planning how it will respond to various scenarios like this, something it does before every election.
“Every [election] year we plan for public safety issues, weather issues — we have to plan for unexpected things that could go wrong,” Simon told Sahan Journal. “This time, we have to add a new category to the list of hazards that we plan for, and that is the possibility that our own federal government might, in some way, directly or indirectly interfere with the election.”
Simon is a Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate who is running for a fourth term against Republican Tad Jude to oversee Minnesota’s elections.
If federal agents were to appear at the polls, Simon said, the state has “really good laws about who can be at or near a polling place,” and they apply to federal law enforcement as well.
Below, Sahan Journal takes a look at what the Trump administration has said about the upcoming election, what it has done, what the state is doing and what community members are doing to ensure a free and fair election next month.
Has the Trump administration threatened to send federal agents to the polls?
President Donald Trump has baselessly and repeatedly claimed that undocumented immigrants are voting all over the country. He even made a primetime TV address on alleged election vulnerabilities over the summer, which his opponents viewed as a lead-up to and justification for federal election interference this fall.
But he told Time magazine last month that he “hadn’t thought about” sending ICE agents to the polls or declaring a state of emergency before the midterm elections.
Trump’s allies like Steve Bannon, who is not a part of the administration, have made provocative statements on the matter, including promising that ICE will “surround the polls” to prevent a “stolen election.”
But officials at the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has stated multiple times this year, including before Congress, that the agency has no plans to send immigration agents to the polls. Other administration officials such as the head of Customs and Border Protection have said the same.
Immigration agents could conduct immigration raids near the polls, they suggested, but they ruled out plans to patrol polling areas themselves. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin also stated recently that federal immigration agents could be called to address a threat at a polling area, or have a warrant to arrest someone on an immigration charge who is at the polls.
When asked at a recent Senate hearing whether he would send FBI agents to the polls, FBI Director Kash Patel evaded the question and instead said he’d put an “election crimes community coordinator” at all 56 FBI field offices.
What has the Trump administration actually done so far?
The Trump administration demanded that Minnesota officials hand over unredacted voter rolls, and threatened to cut off all federal election funding if they didn’t. Minnesota, along with 33 other states, declined to do so, concluding that the federal government didn’t have the authority to compel states to hand over sensitive information.
“They sued us, and so far we’ve all won,” Simon said.
As far as cutting off federal funding for elections, Simon said that hasn’t happened yet. Besides, most of this funding amounts to federal grants that Minnesota hasn’t received in a while, he added.
For example, some of it has previously come through the Help America Vote Act, a federal law passed in 2002 after controversy over “hanging chads” and other glitches in the 2000 presidential election. That law helped states modernize balloting systems, but the federal government hasn’t distributed money to any state as part of this law in two years.
What about the federal election monitors?
During the August primary election, the federal Department of Justice sent 20 people to Minnesota to monitor elections in Hennepin and Ramsey counties. This announcement generated fear for some, prompting the Secretary of State’s Office and the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office to send their own workers to monitor the federal monitors.
Lost in many of the headlines over the matter was the fact that the Department of Justice routinely sends such monitors from its Civil Rights Departments during every election cycle. They make sure local elections are following provisions in the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in elections. Federal monitors, for example, could ensure voting materials are provided in multiple languages, and that people with disabilities have physical access to the polls.
“The [Joe] Biden administration did the same thing. The stated reason is a good reason,” Simon said. “We just want to make sure that the stated reason was the real reason.”
Hennepin County officials denied the Justice Department’s request for the monitors to be allowed inside polling places during the primary election. Hennepin County spokesperson Joshua Yetman said that this decision came after hearing concerns from residents.
“Although we have had no issues with previous DOJ election monitoring, we determined that prioritizing a safe, orderly, and welcoming environment for voters was necessary this year,” Yetman told Sahan Journal. “Because the DOJ was not granted permission to observe from inside, its monitors were subject to the same polling-place access and distance requirements as other members of the public.”
The federal monitors went to polling sites in pairs and stayed a least 100 feet away from the polling entrance, as state law requires. They typically sat in folding chairs and took notes, Simon said.
“They followed the rules, followed the laws, there were no disruptions and things worked out quite well,” Simon said.
The Trump administration recently revealed plans to send 1,000 federal monitors across the country for the November midterm election. While “that sounds like a lot,” Simon said, it averages to 20 agents per state. The Department of Justice has not yet said how many monitors it will send to each state, but Simon said his office and the Attorney General’s Office are again prepared to monitor the monitors.
“I have every expectation that if they send anyone here, it will go smoothly,” Simon said.
What does the law say about federal agents or law enforcement at the polls?
Both federal and state law bar law enforcement from patrolling the polls in most cases. For example, federal law prevents armed federal agents and military of any kind from being stationed at the polls unless it’s necessary to “repel armed enemies of the United States.”
State law prevents law enforcement from stationing within 100 feet of the entrance of the polling place with just two exceptions: if they work in the same building on a regular basis, such as city hall, or if they’re called in by an election judge or a poll worker to respond to an incident like a fight or an emergency.
If federal agents still show up at the polls, what can people do?
Citing the above laws, Simon emphasized that “we’re confident that local governments have the tools they need to enforce these laws.”
For people scared to vote on Election Day, Simon recommends they vote early or vote by mail, pointing to the many options that people have to cast ballots in Minnesota.
What should someone who sees potential wrongdoing at the polls do?
Anyone who sees potential wrongdoing at the polls should report it to the election judges, who are all trained to respond. They can also report it to the Secretary of State’s Office by calling 1-877-600-VOTE.
What are the state and local governments doing to prevent federal election interference?
Both Simon and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison have planned how they would respond to various interference scenarios. Responses could include filing emergency lawsuits if necessary, and getting an emergency ruling from judges right away, before polls close, for which Simon said there’s a precedent.
Hennepin County last week joined a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security challenging Mullin’s statement that immigration agents could be at a polling place arresting someone for whom they have a warrant. In a prepared statement to Sahan Journal, Hennepin County Auditor Daniel Rogan said the county joined the lawsuit “out of an abundance of caution” and added that he doesn’t have any information indicating that federal authorities plan to do this here.
“Hennepin County is committed to protecting the right to vote, and joining this lawsuit is another step we are taking to ensure every eligible voter can access the ballot box with confidence,” Rogan said.
What are community members doing to prevent federal election interference?
Several community groups, including Unidos MN and COPAL, are already training “democracy protectors” similar to how they organized observers to document immigration enforcement during Operation Metro Surge. Organizers frame the effort as a way to bring the infrastructure they organized earlier this year into the election.
Their efforts also include educating people on their rights, making a plan to vote and supporting others to vote.
“We are not reinventing anything but just being a witness of this electoral process, without intervening, without creating any disturbances, but just being active citizens,” said Rico Duran, COPAL’s organizing director.
Simon added he has been hearing of the possibility of community members monitoring precincts and has been urging caution.
“It’s perfectly OK to organize the capacity to send people to polling places on Election Day,” Simon said. “We completely understand the desire of people who want to get out there and protect voters. It’s natural.”
But he warned that such actually sending community observers to precincts “in an absence of any known threat” may backfire.
“The everyday voter may go to a polling place and see five to 10 people clumped together and have no idea if they’re friends or foes,” Simon said.
Regardless, any community observer would be subject to the same state law as anyone else not entering the polling place vote, which is to remain 100 feet away from the entrance.
