Wisconsin Election Officials Forced to Issue Guidance About How to Deal With Fed Agents at Polls

Of Course a 2020 Fake Elector Is Involved in This Saga

As key members of the Trump administration refuse to give straight answers about whether they intend to send armed federal agents to polling places in a few weeks — which is against federal law — Wisconsin election officials are grappling with the vacuum that that ambiguity has created.

For more than a year, we’ve been covering the wishy-washy responses from Trump administration officials like Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, FBI Director Kash Patel and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to serious questions about the matter. President Trump has remained vague on the issue as well. The reason executive branch officials are facing questions about whether this is something they’re considering is twofold. The Trump administration has made it clear it has every intention of pulling out all the stops to interfere in states’ rights to administer their own elections, and Trump’s election denying allies outside the administration (e.g. Steve Bannon) are agitating around the idea. Trump himself has also expressed profound regret about not enlisting members of the military to seize voting equipment in 2020.

Hegseth has creatively dodged on the matter repeatedly in public, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee back in April that he has “never been ordered to do anything illegal, and I won’t” when questioned about deploying service members to voting sites. Patel and Mullin have been a bit less slimy about it by essentially admitting its something they’ve thought about doing. Patel recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he plans to have agents and intelligence analysts stationed at FBI field offices during the election in case there are any election security-related issues that need to be investigated. And Mullin has walked a similar line that leaves the door open for armed officers at polling places in particular (if far-fetched) circumstances.

“The only reason why we would be at polling places is if there is a threat to that polling place or we’re serving a warrant on someone that we have been actively tracking down,” he said last month.

Election officials are now being forced to step in and address the potential for disruption should the administration concoct some sort of emergency justification for sending armed federal officers to key precincts. Federal law prevents the government from sending any armed troops, agents or officers to polling place unless it is to “repel armed enemies of the United States.”

Members of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission voted on Thursday to sign off on guidance that will be sent to local election officials to help them navigate such a situation. Here’s what the guidance says, according to the Associated Press:

The memo tells Wisconsin’s roughly 1,800 clerks who administer elections what to do if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Department of Homeland Security officials, FBI agents or local law enforcement shows up at the polls.

If officers arrive, the guidance says the head of the polling site should inform the municipal clerk, who should then tell the county clerk and the state elections commission. If the agents are there to observe, they must check in like any other observer and be subject to rules governing them, the guidance says.

Only one member of the board, a Republican, reportedly voted against sending out the guidance, in comments that actively diminished the threat and potential for major disenfranchisement in key parts of the country.

“I personally think this guidance is unnecessary because we have not seemed to need it the past 201 years,” Republican Commissioner Bob Spindell said, per the AP.

It may not surprise you to learn that Spindell was one of Trump’s fake electors in Wisconsin during the 2020 election.

Trump Re-Ups His $5k Bribes

President Trump is hosting a series of rallies in Alaska, Ohio, Arizona and Montana this week in a last ditch effort to both make the midterms about himself and also, purportedly, to try to help Republican candidates running in those states.

In Montana this afternoon, he brought up his supposed plan to bribe Americans to vote for the GOP with a promise of $5,000 checks if Republicans hold Congress. He told rallygoers in Montana that any Democratic victory would mean a “1929-style economic depression.”

“Just pretend I’m on the ballot,” he told the crowd, according to the Montana Free Press.

Also, Montanans Will Be Eaten by ‘Wild Animals’ If Dems Win, Per Trump

“If the Democrat communists win, they will pack the Supreme Court with radical Marxists. Take away your guns,” Trump said. “How would you like to live up here without guns?”

“You know who would love that to happen? Some of the wild animals you have up here that like eating you.”

…

Read This From TPM Tonight

“I’ve spent the last two years writing about the Trump administration’s plans to denaturalize large swaths of people. For the administration and its ideologues, it’s about more than denaturalizations, which Supreme Court precedent and the difficulty of bringing the cases will likely restrict: it’s about diminishing the First Amendment rights of naturalized citizens, while threatening the rest of the country,” my colleague Josh Kovensky writes on the Trump administration’s targeting of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). More here: The Omar Case Encapsulates MAGA’s Attack on Citizenship

Yesterday’s Top Story

ALERT: Trump DOJ Begins Active Election Interference in California

Something for the Road

Thanks to the many of you who emailed me about your love for thrifting! Of course, none of this really has anything to do with the midterms or American fascism or Trump’s imperialistic ambitions or the political toxicity of data centers or any number of themes I focus on in my evening newsletter. But my commitment to thrifting everything I own is about as serious as my commitment to TPM/helping you readers navigate these trying times. So I thought I might start sharing some of my most unique finds.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across this standing Tiffany lamp. It is a knockoff, maybe even a knockoff of a knockoff. But even the most modern knockoffs cost hundreds these days, so you’ll imagine my delight when I stumbled upon this gal at Mother of Junk in Williamsburg in Brooklyn recently for $80. She’s a beaut ✨