States prep for ICE agents to be at polls, just in case

The Trump administration's hints about sending ICE agents to election polling places this fall have led state officials from Maine to Oregon to make plans to counter any actions that could affect voters.

Why it matters: It's illegal for federal law enforcement to be at polling places — and there are limits on how close local authorities can be — but when asked about ICE at the polls, President Trump said in May he'd "do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections."

• Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE agents could be at polling places if they were serving an immigration warrant.
• "We would be engaging in malpractice if we didn't prepare for the concern [about ICE agents showing up at polls] and we didn't address it," New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver told Axios.

The big picture: State election officials nationwide told Axios how they're working with local election officials and state attorneys general to prep for the possibility of ICE disrupting voting or ballot drop box operations.

• "ICE doesn't have a role here," said Aghogho Edevbie, Michigan's deputy secretary of state. "Certainly any ICE activity near a polling location can be considered voter intimidation, and we would take steps to counter that immediately."

Zoom in: Toulouse Oliver said her office's preparations for any federal agents are similar to how it would deal with other unauthorized people at the polls.

• Her office is training local election officials to initially ask any officers to leave the voting area. If necessary, then they should call the county sheriff. The next step would be legal action against any unauthorized people.
• "An ICE agent is the same as any other unauthorized individual at a polling location, and the same protocols should be followed," she said.

What they're saying: "If the Trump administration were to go down that path, the individuals involved would be committing crimes," Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said, describing a similar protocol in her state.

• "The coordination between secretaries of state, clerks, attorneys general, and partners at every level is very close," she added.

Zoom out: Election officials typically respond to myriad disruptions during election season.

• Bellows told Axios she has dealt with several cases of "swatting" at polling places, referring to when someone calls in a fake emergency to a location to try to interrupt voting.
• In Oregon, Secretary of State Tobias Read compared preparing for ICE agents to dealing with major wildfires during a past election season.
• "Our system has to deal with all kinds of disasters, not just manufactured ones like the one from the White House right now," Read said.

Colorado's secretary of state, Jena Griswold, has experience responding to a case of potential voter intimidation in 2020, when two observers who were openly carrying weapons began filming people at the polls. The men eventually left the area after prompting from local officials, and weren't charged.

• The city of Denver, a major target for Trump's immigration crackdown, is involved in litigation aimed at preemptively blocking ICE agents from showing up at the polls.

Between the lines: Mullin's recent statements that ICE agents will be at polling places only if they're making a targeted arrest haven't reassured election officials.

• "I think people could look to Minnesota and the fact that Alex Pretti and Ms. [Renée] Good are dead to talk about ICE's effectiveness and the appropriateness of their action," Read said.

The other side: "America's elections are NOT a sanctuary from federal criminal law, and [the Department of Homeland Security] will not pretend otherwise because a secretary of state held a training," a DHS spokesperson told Axios in a statement.

• "ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations. ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action."

DHS used to have a more robust partnership to help secure elections from physical and digital threats, through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

• But the Trump administration has made significant cuts to that agency, and some of the regional offices that handled that work are now empty.