Slotkin has sought the same assurances from Pentagon leaders under both parties in 2020 and 2024
WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) sent letters to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, calling on them to publicly confirm that the U.S. military will play no role in this November’s elections. President Donald Trump has stated he would not rule out sending ICE or the military to the polls in November.
Federal law already makes it a crime to use the military to interfere in elections, including seizing ballots or voting equipment. But Hegseth has repeatedly declined to rule out using troops in this way, going so far as to make false claims to Congress to get out of answering. President Trump said earlier this year that he regretted not deploying the military after the 2020 election and that he would consider doing this during the November election.
“The nonpartisan tradition of military service and the constitutional guardrails that prevent our military from becoming a domestic police force for one political party are essential to maintaining our democracy,” wrote Senator Slotkin. “Thus, our nation’s senior-most defense and security leaders are the final failsafe for our democracy.”
In 2020, then-Representative Slotkin joined then-Representative Mikie Sherrill in submitting questions for the record to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, asking whether the military would ever be directed to interfere in an election and whether they would refuse such an order if given one. General Milley swiftly rejected the notion that the military would be used in any election duties, as that would violate the Constitution and laws of the United States.
In 2024, Slotkin and Sherrill again wrote to then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman General CQ Brown, seeking renewed assurance that the military’s nonpartisan tradition and constitutional limits would hold ahead of that year’s elections.
Slotkin has raised the issue repeatedly as a member of the Senate Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, questioning Hegseth and other Trump administration nominees about their willingness to follow illegal orders, pressing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on the possibility of deploying ICE to polling sites, and questioning Defense Department officials and NORTHCOM’s commander during Senate Armed Services Committee hearings.
Slotkin has introduced the Protect Our Polls Act, which would block President Trump from sending federal law enforcement or uniformed military to interfere in elections.
Read the letters to Secretary Hegseth here and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Caine here.
Read one pager on the letters here.
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