September 25, 2026 Authorities Governing the Deployment of Troops during the Election and Post-Election Season 

With rare exception, it is a crime for the federal government to bring “armed men” to the polls.

• Federal law bans deploying troops or armed personnel to voting sites except to repel an actual armed foreign attack. Federal and state laws also prohibit voter intimidation generally.
• These specific election-related restrictions are on top of broader legal limits on when the military can be used domestically at all.
• Statutes such as the Posse Comitatus Act explicitly bar the military from domestic law enforcement absent express authorization.
• The Insurrection Act gives the president power to deploy federal forces domestically in some rare instances. However, it should not override the explicit ban on armed federal troops at election sites.
• The courts can and do review domestic deployments, and court decisions effectively blocked recent deployments in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland.
• Military servicemembers are subject to an array of criminal laws that prohibit efforts to intimidate, threaten, coerce or interfere with voters or election officials.

State governments can call on the National Guard to support law enforcement, but not to interfere in elections.

• The National Guard can answer to the federal government, state governments, or both. However, in all cases Guard personnel are subject to state or federal prohibitions on election interference and voter intimidation.
• In some instances, state officials have used National Guard personnel to help election officials with tasks like cybersecurity and poll working, but unarmed, out of uniform, and at the request of state authorities.