News

Civil Rights Groups Sue to Keep Armed Agents Away From Voting Sites

The New York Times · Amy Qin · last updated

The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and suggestions that it could send agents to polling stations violate the Voting Rights Act.

Civil rights groups and labor unions sued the Trump administration on Friday, asserting that its aggressive immigration enforcement and suggestions that it could send armed agents to polling sites amounted to voter intimidation and violated the Voting Rights Act.

Related Knowledge Center: Voting rights

State of Play

As Republicans move to restrict voting rights, and Donald Trump appears to be preparing for another confrontation about election results, a wide range of organizations are pushing back.

Top guidance in the run-up to Election Day

  • Ben Wikler, a political organizer who was chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from 2019 to 2025 says, “The very most powerful thing you can do as a volunteer in politics is to talk to your actual friends and family who are fence-sitters.” 
    • He quotes Abraham Lincoln, who wrote in a letter to a campaign committee in 1840: “Keep a constant watch on the doubtful voters, and from time to time have them talked to by those in whom they have the most confidence.” 
    • The place to put our energy, Wikler says, is on the people whose votes will matter most because they live in a place with high-stakes, very close elections, as well as the people where we live.
  • ACLU: Know your voting rights  |  How the ACLU is safeguarding the election
  • Report intimidation, at the polls or elsewhere, immediately to the Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA (en Español).

More informationabout Voting rights