PATRICK WHITTLE and MATT BROWN
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s Republican nominee for governor recently told a crowd of supporters that he would ask a top Department of Homeland Security official to send U.S. Marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling places in the state for this fall’s midterm elections, according to audio obtained by The Associated Press.
During an Aug. 20 event in Arundel, Bobby Charles told a group of supporters that he would ask Tom Homan, the White House border czar, to send federal agents to polling places in the weeks before Election Day. The audio was first reported by the Bangor Daily News.
“Here’s my secret,” Charles told members of a Maine Young Republicans chapter. “I have a friend named Tom Homan. Tom and I used to get on Fox all the time together. Tom’s an awesome guy.”
“I’m going to ask Tom, I’m going to actually — three or four weeks before the election, maybe three — I’m going to make an appeal for ICE and Marshals to be at our voting booths,” Charles said, according to the audio.
On Wednesday, he explained his comments by saying state and local authorities who manage elections should have an open line of communication with federal authorities if needed to “prevent violence at a voting place, in order to prevent intimidation at a voting place and in order to prevent illegality at a voting place.”
He said his point was that Maine authorities should do everything legally possible to prevent illegal voting in the state.
“Everybody who is legally entitled to vote should be free from any intimidation and should be able to vote,” he said in a statement released by his campaign. “Anybody who is not legally entitled to vote should not be voting.”
Trump, Republican allies are fixated on voting by noncitizens
Charles’ comments come as President Donald Trump continues to sow doubt about the security of elections in the U.S. elections and takes unprecedented measures to intervene in election administration. The Constitution gives states, and sometimes Congress, the authority to set election rules but grants no such power to the president.
A central part of his attacks is to claim widespread fraud through voting by noncitizens. But those claims are vastly overstated. Voting by noncitizens is exceptionally rare and is punishable as a felony, with deportation as one potential penalty.
Nevertheless, Trump has been pushing Congress to pass a bill that would require voters to show documentary proof of citizenship to vote in the upcoming midterms and signed an executive order directing the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to those on an approved list of verified voters.
When reached for comment on Wednesday, DHS did not address whether department officials had held or planned to hold conversations with political campaigns about election security. DHS officials have previously said they do not have plans to send ICE agents to polling places.
“Elections exist for the American people, not illegal aliens, to choose their leaders,” a Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement to the AP.
Democratic state officials have been concerned about the possibility of immigration agents showing up near polling places on Election Day or during early voting. Several states have taken actions this year to guard against it.
In February, a DHS official told a group of secretaries of state that “any suggestion that ICE will be present at any polling location is simply not true,” according to several secretaries who were part of the conversation. That followed congressional testimony from the heads of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, who both answered “No, sir” when asked if they are involved in any efforts to guard voting precincts.
Maine officials, Democrats push back on Charles’ comments
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said ICE agents are prohibited by law from being at polling places and that Maine residents can expect a free and secure election in November. Bellows ran for governor this year but lost in the Democratic primary.
“The political rhetoric coming from Mr. Charles is just politics, but it won’t change the laws or the Constitution,” Bellows said.
The Maine Democratic Party also criticized Charles’ comments and described his plan as likely illegal. The party also criticized the timing of the comments as the state is continuing to wrestle with the killing of Biddeford resident Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero by an ICE officer earlier this summer.
The comments expose Charles as a “MAGA extremist” who will do Trump’s bidding, said Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson.
“His plan to ask Trump’s border czar to send ICE agents to Maine polling places just weeks before Election Day is not only deeply alarming — it is likely illegal. This is a blatant attempt to intimidate voters and yet another reason Bobby Charles is too extreme for Maine,” Murphy-Anderson said.
Federal law prohibits the military and federal agencies from putting troops or armed officers near polling sites, according to the Brennan Center.
DHS secretary says agents could respond to ‘specific threat’ at polling places
The White House has dismissed concerns that federal agents would interfere with elections and noted that there was no disruption to the election process in last year’s elections, when Democrats performed well.
During his March confirmation hearing, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin downplayed concerns about ICE agents being used to intimidate voters or interfere with election administration. But he maintained that agents had a right to conduct immigration enforcement activities at sites related to election administration.
“I don’t understand what the concern is about enforcement of immigration at polling places anyways, because honestly if you’re not a citizen you shouldn’t be voting anyways,” Mullin testified. “So technically, there shouldn’t be illegals at the polling spot.”
He continued: “The only reason why my officers would be there is if there was a specific threat for them to be there, not for intimidation.”
Charles is an attorney who served as U.S. assistant secretary of state under President George W. Bush. He won the Republican primary for governor in June and will face Democratic candidate Hannah Pingree, the former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, in November. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, is term-limited.
Brown reported from Washington, D.C.