Democrats have been warning for some time that there is a potential near future in which President Trump takes his army of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and floods polling places in areas that tend to not vote for Republicans during the midterm elections, an election-meddling rerun of what he has already done in blue cities and states around the country. ...
In the wake of Trump’s calls last week to “nationalize voting,” concerns about Trump using his now-favored secret police to intimidate voters in “15 places” he deems rife with voter fraud have increased. ... The Trump administration has not directly answered questions about the possibility, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying last week that she “can’t guarantee” ICE agents wouldn’t be near voting places.
During a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing with DHS officials on Thursday, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) questioned acting ICE Director Todd Lyons about how he would respond to orders to deploy his agents to the polls this fall. Lyons admitted that federal immigration officers would have “no reason” to be at polling places, which is perhaps the most direct engagement we’ve gotten from anyone in the Trump administration yet on this issue. Here’s their exchange:
Read the rest at Talking Points Memo.
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