Top US general says no plans to send troops to polls for November elections

Remarks come in response to concerns from Democrats that military could be used to interfere in elections.

The chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, the country’s highest ranking military officer, has assured an opposition lawmaker that there are no plans to deploy troops to polling places during elections on November 3.

“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,” General Dan Caine said in the letter obtained on Monday by The Associated Press news agency. “Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”

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Caine’s letter was addressed to Democratic US Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who recently asked Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to confirm they won’t send troops to the polls. Caine, who advises Hegseth and President Donald Trump on military matters, also wrote: “I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections.”

Anxiety among Democrats that the Trump administration could try to meddle in the midterm elections has grown, particularly after the president deployed federal agents in Democratic-led states over the objections of local leaders. He said they were needed for immigration enforcement and due to crime and protests.

Slotkin told the AP earlier in August that Trump has been laying the groundwork to claim November’s elections will have been stolen. She noted that Trump contemplated using the military to seize voting machines after his loss in 2020 to President Joe Biden and has deployed the National Guard to cities against the wishes of Democratic leaders. He also deployed active-duty Marines to Los Angeles during his immigration crackdown in 2025.

Federal law prohibits the deployment of armed federal forces to election locations unless “necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States”. If any element of the military were to get involved, it would likely be the National Guard under state control.

“The nonpartisan tradition of military service and the constitutional guardrails that prevent our military from becoming a domestic police force for one political party are essential to maintaining our democracy,” Slotkin said in a news release this month announcing her letters to US military officials. “Thus, our nation’s senior-most defense and security leaders are the final failsafe for our democracy.”

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 letter asking him to confirm troops won’t be deployed to the polls in November.

Slotkin had asked for a response by last Thursday.

In 2020, General Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded to a similar letter from Slotkin, then a member of the US House of Representatives.

“I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military,” Milley wrote. “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.”