President Trump Gives Update On The DOJ Deploying 1,000 Poll Watchers For The Midterms

President Donald Trump on Saturday downplayed concerns over the Justice Department’s deployment of poll watchers to voting locations across Georgia, part of what the DOJ has called “the biggest DOJ election observer effort in history.”

“They want to watch. They’re not going to do anything other than watch,” Trump said in an interview with Atlanta News First ahead of his rally in Perry, Georgia.

Trump’s DOJ plans to dispatch more than 1,000 monitors on Election Day — hundreds more than the Biden administration deployed in 2024. There is no evidence that the monitoring efforts will disrupt polling places or prevent anyone from voting. Justice Department monitors and partisan observers have long been part of Election Day.

But some fear the widening web of federal and party monitors could mean far more incidents — even minor errors or baseless claims of fraud — are elevated and could be used by Trump and his allies to reinforce claims that US elections are not secure.

“The one thing we have to have is honest elections,” Trump said Saturday.

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The U.S. military is not planning to send troops or other personnel to polling places during the 2026 midterm elections, according to Gen. Dan Caine, the country’s highest-ranking military officer.

Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the pledge in a letter to Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., who had asked him and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the role of the armed forces during the November elections.

“Election administration and security remain the fundamental responsibility of state and local officials,” Caine wrote to Slotkin. “The Joint Force has no plans to send Federal military personnel or Federalized members of the National Guard to polling places during the 2026 elections. Likewise, the Joint Force has no plans to use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines, or other election-related material.”

Caine wrote that “I have neither received nor anticipate receiving any unlawful order concerning the role of the Joint Force in the upcoming November 2026 midterm elections.”

Federal law forbids the presence of U.S. troops at the polls “unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.”

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