Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin has warned that President Trump could send troops to seize ballots during the midterm elections.
Slotkin raised her concerns on Thursday night, the same day during which Trump addressed the nation and claimed that there were “cover-ups” and “vulnerability” in the U.S.’s electoral system.
On July 16’s episode of MSNOW’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell, Slotkin said she is so concerned that Trump could deploy troops during the midterm elections that she has proposed an act that would prevent uniformed military personnel or federal law enforcement from touching voting machines or votes.
Slotkin also said that the bill would prevent the military or federal law enforcement from taking care of “alleged security threats around our polls”.
The Michigan senator continued, “The president refuses to rule out, as does his cabinet, sending in uniform military, and you have to think through these scenarios.”
Slotkin noted that she had attended meetings with officials in Michigan on the matter.
“What if they send in the military and they say: ‘You know what? We’re coming into this voting location. We’re going to seize machines,’” she questioned.
Slotkin went on to claim that the president had made it clear that the issue was “not a joke to him”.
“This is not something he says kind of offhandedly,” she concluded. “He’s obsessed with it and, so, he’s willing to really do anything to win, quote-unquote, in November.”
Slotkin’s proposed Protect Our Polls Act would also prevent the FBI and ICE from being deployed to polling stations. A document describing the act points out that Trump has called for Republicans to “nationalize” elections.
The document also points out Trump’s claim that he should have used the National Guard to seize election boxes following the 2020 Presidential Election, which had ended in Trump’s defeat.
During his July 16, 2026, address, Trump claimed: “Starting during the 2020 election cycle, the People’s Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history.”
According to Trump, China had obtained 220 million U.S. voter files through “illicit” means.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, the Chinese embassy denied the allegations and said that China “has never and will never interfere with the presidential elections of the U.S”.
Previously, Trump has insisted that the 2020 election was rigged against him, despite that theory being widely debunked.
Major news networks, including CNN, ABC, and NBC, chose not to broadcast Trump’s July 16 speech.
Explaining CNN’s decision not to air the speech, anchor Kaitlan Collins told the network’s viewers: “We’ll be monitoring what the president says tonight, as we always do, but aren’t taking it live, given the president has a well-documented history of saying blatantly false things about elections.”
