Top General: No Troops at November Polls
Top General: No Troops at November Polls
The News
The nation's highest-ranking military officer says the armed forces will not be at the polls in November.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put it in writing to Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who had asked him and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to rule it out.
"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 wrote in the letter, 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."
Caine added: "I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections."
Timeline
Then-Chairman Gen. Mark Milley answered a nearly identical letter from Slotkin, then a congresswoman, writing, "I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military," and that election disputes are for the courts and Congress to resolve, "not the U.S. military."
President Trump deployed active-duty Marines to Los Angeles during his immigration crackdown, and sent the National Guard to cities over the objections of Democratic leaders.
At a congressional hearing, Slotkin asked Hegseth whether he would follow an order to seize ballots. Hegseth called it a "gotcha hypothetical," but said, "I've never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won't."
Slotkin sent letters to Caine and Hegseth asking each to commit to keeping the military away from the polls, with a response requested by last Thursday.
Caine's reply became public.
Reactions
Slotkin told the AP earlier in August that Trump has been laying the groundwork to claim the elections were stolen. She pointed to his consideration of using the military to seize voting machines after his 2020 loss and to his Guard deployments in Democratic-run cities.
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.
Sonja Thrasher, Slotkin's press secretary, said Hegseth has not replied to the senator's letter. The Pentagon previously said it would respond to her directly and did not immediately answer an AP question Monday about the status of that response.
What's Next
The open question is Hegseth. He runs the Pentagon and gives orders Caine only advises on, and he has blown past Slotkin's Thursday deadline without a written commitment.
Caine's pledge also has a boundary: it covers federal troops and federalized National Guard members. Guard units under state control are a different legal category, and if any part of the military ended up near an election site, that is the most likely route.
Federal law bars sending armed federal forces to election locations unless "necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States."
More
Caine advises both Hegseth and Trump on military matters. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs is not in the operational chain of command, which runs from the president to the defense secretary to combatant commanders — one reason Democrats want Hegseth's signature, not just Caine's.
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