By Bill Eddy
Given the intense efforts by President Trump to disrupt the election process, it is not surprising that there is fear in the air that he will find a way to instigate violence and chaos on election day, November 3rd. After all, on February 3rd former Trump election adviser and conservative podcaster, Steve Bannon, said: “We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again.” The next day Bannon suggested that Trump should also call in the U.S. Army. He said: “You’ve got to get around every poll and make sure only people with IDs, people … actually registered to vote and people that are United States citizens vote in this election.”
Later, Todd Blanche, when he was the deputy attorney general, said: “Why are there objections to sending ICE officers to polling places? Illegals can’t vote.” In May, 2026, Trump said he would do “anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections; we have to have honest elections.” This is surely a threat for a power grab as a great deal of research shows that election fraud is nearly non-existent—less than 0.0001 percent. The elections will be honest unless he disrupts them.
Trump’s voting restriction setbacks
A lot has happened since May. His efforts to get the Senate to pass the “SAVE America Act”—a nationwide law with many voting restrictions—has been permanently stalled in the Senate because of Democratic opposition and the filibuster (requiring 60 votes to pass).
In July he gave a primetime address to the nation warning of “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure” and “China’s illicit acquisition of 220 million US voter files.” Yet he provided no credible evidence in support of his false claims and his disapproval ratings continued to tank.
In September, the U. S. Supreme Court denied his efforts to block mail-in voting. He then reversed his long-standing opposition and told Republicans: “Vote early, vote by mail, or vote in person on Election Day.”
Given his setbacks, now President Trump and his administration say that they have no plans to send ICE to the polls. “I haven’t considered it,” he said recently. However, he has not publicly stated that he would rule it out.
In September, Markwayne Mullin, U. S. homeland security secretary said: “The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down,” Mullin said. “ICE’s job is immigration, customs enforcement. That’s their job … if we’re serving a warrant we will be where we need to be.” In other words, no large-scale presence by ICE, but the possibility they will be there to arrest someone specific who they have been tracking.
Neither Trump nor his negative advocates want to commit to anything (because that’s their nature), but they do not appear to be planning a presence by ICE. If they were, they would be loudly and repeatedly saying it to intimidate people from showing up at all. Besides, there are nearly 100,000 polling places and only a total of 20,000 ICE agents.
Department of Justice Monitors
Apparently the DOJ plans to send 1000 federal election monitors to the polls, which they routinely do in election years. This is nearly twice the number in the 2024 election; however the states are prepared to keep a tight rein on them. Reuters interviewed 50 elections officials and they had feedback like this:
“In Michigan state election officials said they will ensure federal monitors remain within legal limits. ‘Any member of the public can come into a polling location and observe the election process. And that is what we will allow DOJ to do. We’re not going to allow them to do more than that,’ said Aghogho Edevbie, Michigan’s Democratic deputy secretary of state.”
It would be illegal
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, federal laws since 1865 say that calling up the Army to supervise an election would be illegal. Federal law (18 U.S. Code §592) says: “Whoever, being an officer of the Army or Navy, or other person in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, orders, brings, keeps, or has under his authority or control any troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both; and be disqualified from holding any office of honor, profit, or trust under the United States.” This includes ICE as a “service of the United States.”
Another law, 52 U.S.C. § 20511, makes it a federal crime to intimidate or attempt to intimidate a voter or anyone “urging or aiding any person . . . to vote.”
While Trump has a history of violating federal laws and the Constitution, he seems to be abiding by this because of all his other setbacks.
His War on Iran is going poorly. State governments are not bending to his will. Courts in general are stopping many of his actions and even the U. S. Supreme Court has not ruled in his favor recently. His poll numbers show that he is increasingly unpopular and gas prices remain high despite his diesel deal with Russia. So, violent situations are not likely to be interpreted in his favor right now. Instead, he will resort to his legal manipulations.
He will manipulate the outcome instead
When Reuters interviewed 50 elections officials this is what they concluded:
“Many said the greatest risk may not be any single intervention changing an election outcome, but a series of investigations, legal challenges and disputes over voting that could disrupt certification of the results, undermine public confidence and throw close races into turmoil.” Instead, they made a list of nine ways the administration might try to interfere legally.
In short, violence is very unlikely to be Trump’s way of creating chaos on election day. The best solution is to do what the voters in Hungary just did with their former President Viktor Orban. Their outcome was so massive against him that he did not use the weapons he had considered. “Credible reports suggest that a plan had been drawn up to deploy trained thugs – including Russian-sourced ones (titushki) – to disrupt the opposition in the event of a close or contested result. But Fidesz’s defeat was so heavy that Orbán conceded soon after the polls closed.”
Since Trump and Orban have the same basic authoritarian personality, let’s hope that this is what happens here.
Bill Eddy is a retired attorney and a resident of Ocean Beach.
I personally drove over to the County of San Diego, Registrar of Voters and handed in two ballots, which were cheerfully accepted by happy county staff. There was plenty of parking, and lots of smiling happy people to assist me. I too wish that everyone gets out and takes part in our local elections. My only regret is that I was not afforded the opportunity to vote for a new mayor.