he highest-ranking officer in the U.S. military says there are no plans to send troops to polling places during November’s midterm congressional elections, addressing concerns among Democrats that the Trump administration could use the military to interfere with the vote.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the statement in a letter to Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who recently asked Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to confirm they won’t send troops to the polls.
“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,” Caine said in the letter to Slotkin, which was obtained Monday by The Associated Press. “Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”
Declaring nationwide martial law is not a thing in the United States. It’s just not possible because there are too many of us. We’re too big as a population and too big of a country and there aren’t enough active military members to hold a country of this size with this many weapons.
There’s also no judicial infrastructure to do it. Martial law is the suspension of civilian law. It means no civilian courts, no Congress, no habeas corpus. It means everyone is being arrested by the military and tried by military tribunals. They fired so many people at the Pentagon that there wouldn’t be enough courts to hold us all.
People love to throw that term around because it’s always on the horizon and never comes, therefore we can always be scared of it. But it’s irrelevant. ICE has what, a $10 billion budget? It’s not martial law, yet we have these goons on the streets going after people. But does it make you feel any better because it’s not the buzzword we’re afraid of? Probably not.
Arguing it’s logistically impossible may be true, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try. This administration doesn’t seem to care one whit that what they’re trying to do is physically or logically impossible, and they have no regard for due process or the rule of law either. There is no adult in the room, and if it ends in bloody chaos and civil breakdown, so be it. They are banking on people being too passive to do anything about it. Relying on good sense and rational self-interest is absolutely foolish here.
Sending IS citizens to El Salvador was also not a thing, until it was.