Maine Republican governor nominee requests ICE at polling places during midterms

Bobby Charles, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Maine, recently said he wants the Trump administration to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and U.S. Marshals to polling sites in the state.

In audio obtained by the Bangor Daily News, Charles said he would ask White House border czar Tom Homan to fulfill the request.

“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 Thursday, during an event with Maine Young Republicans.

The GOP nominee also asked whether the “illegals who are being paid money” would “like” the presence of ICE officers and Marshals at polling sites. There is no documented evidence of migrants who are living in the country illegally receiving payments to vote, and it is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal or state elections.

Dale Crafts Jr., Charles’s campaign manager, said the point is “Bobby will do everything legally possible to prevent illegal voting in Maine, to make sure that Maine elections are decided by legal Maine voters.”

Crafts added in a statement, “Especially as this is now a sanctuary state, he will ask all legal assistance from DOJ [the Justice Department] and Homeland to assure Maine experiences no illegal voting.”

Charles, who worked in the White House under former President Reagan and at the State Department under former President George W. Bush, defeated seven other Republicans in June to capture the GOP gubernatorial nomination.

His general election opponent is former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree (D), the daughter of Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine). Election handicapper Cook Political Report rates the race as solidly Democratic.

Devon Murphy-Anderson, the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, blasted Charles as a “MAGA extremist” whose preference for ICE officers and Marshals to be at polling places is “deeply alarming” and “likely illegal.” Murphy-Anderson added in a release , “This is a blatant attempt to intimidate voters and yet another reason Bobby Charles is too extreme for Maine.”

In-person early voting in Maine starts 30 days before the Nov. 3 Election Day, according to vote.org .

President Trump has long claimed, without evidence, that immigrants lacking permanent legal status are casting ballots en masse — such incidents are fairly slim .

Trump has also for months pushed Republican senators to bypass the filibuster and jam through legislation mandating Americans provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a ballot.

During his confirmation hearing in March, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE officers would only be at polling places “if there was a specific threat,” and not for “intimidation” purposes.

“I can’t sit here and guarantee hypothetically what threat might be there or not,” Mullin told Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich) during a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Mullin later noted to Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) that noncitizens cannot vote in federal or state elections, saying he did not “understand what the concern is about enforcement of immigration at polling places anyways.”

A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department pointed The Hill to those remarks on Wednesday and added, “Elections exist for the American people, not illegal aliens, to choose their leaders.”

The Hill has also reached out to the White House for comment on Charles’s remarks.

So far this primary season, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has sent more than 80 election monitors to 200-plus polling locations in seven states, which it can do under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, told Bloomberg last week the department plans to deploy a record 1,000 monitors for this fall’s midterms.

Federal law bars the deployment of the military to polling places except to “rebel armed services” of the country.

While neither ICE nor the U.S. Marshals Service falls under the Defense Department, it is illegal for the federal government to send armed agents to polling places, according to the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice .