“The Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections.”
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put that in a letter to Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin. The Associated Press obtained the letter Monday. Caine added that the military has no plans to use such personnel “to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”
He went further on the question of orders. “I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections,” Caine wrote. As chairman, he advises Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump on military matters.
Hegseth has not answered
Slotkin had written to both men, asking them to confirm that troops would stay away from the polls. She wanted answers by last Thursday. Sonja Thrasher, her press secretary, said Hegseth has not replied. The Pentagon did not respond right away when the AP asked about the status of his answer. It had earlier said it would reply to the senator directly.
In April, Slotkin asked Hegseth at a congressional hearing whether he would follow orders to seize ballots. He called it a “gotcha hypothetical,” but said: “I’ve never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won’t.”
Democrats’ worry
Democrats have grown more anxious that the administration could interfere in the midterms, particularly after Trump sent federal agents into Democratic-led states over local leaders’ objections. Slotkin told the AP earlier in August that Trump has been laying groundwork to claim the elections were stolen. She cited his contemplation of using the military to seize voting machines after his 2020 loss, his deployment of the National Guard to cities against Democratic leaders’ wishes, and the active-duty Marines he sent to Los Angeles during his 2025 immigration crackdown.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles denied in a Vanity Fair interview last year that Trump would use the military to suppress voting in the midterms.
Federal law bars armed federal forces from election locations unless “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” If any part of the military did get involved, it would most likely be the National Guard under state control.
Slotkin has done this before. In 2020, when she was a congresswoman, she sent a similar letter to Gen. Mark Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley wrote back. “In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. military.”
