President Donald Trump's government has threatened to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to voting centers in the November 3 midterm elections, but a law promoted by Democrats seeks to prevent it.

The Protect Our Polls Act is being promoted by Democratic Senators Alex Padilla (California), ranking member of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and former California Secretary of State; Elissa Slotkin (Michigan), Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin), Ruben Gallego (Arizona), Mark Kelly (Arizona), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Jacky Rosen (Nevada) and Raphael Warnock (Georgia).

“The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy,” declared Senator Padilla. “No American should have to pass through a line of federal troops, ICE agents or armed agents to exercise that right.”

The project seeks to reinforce current legislation that restricts the deployment of military forces and armed federal agents in voting centers, by closing any legal loophole that the Trump administration seeks to use for its purposes, the opponents indicated in a joint message.

“As a Marine, I swore allegiance to the Constitution, not to a president,” said Senator Gallego. “Using our military to intimidate Americans at the polls is disgusting, illegal, and precisely the type of abuse this law stops in its tracks.”

The senators seek that the federal administration provide Congress with intelligence information, legal justification and evidence that a state or local government – ​​organizers of the electoral processes – cannot confront a threat.

Senator Slotkin considered that the Trump administration's plan is to undermine the electoral process.

“President Trump has been openly saying what many think: he wants to undermine our elections by every means possible and refuses to rule out sending uniformed military personnel to voting centers or to collect ballots and voting machines,” he charged. “From 2020 until last week, President Trump has gone out of his way to sow doubt about the election results.”

States such as Arizona, Georgia, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and Michigan are some where President Trump has indicated that there has been some voter fraud.

Senator Baldwin warned that elections allow voters to express their voice, so the attempt to deploy military and ICE agents in voting centers is a form of “intimidation.”

“President Trump is openly considering sending armed federal agents to our schools, churches, fire stations and other voting centers,” Baldwin added. "President Trump has demonstrated time and time again that he is willing to use and abuse the full power of the federal government to intimidate and harm Americans, punish his opponents, and get his way. And that is precisely what he is trying to do this November, because he fears accountability."

Senators Kelly and Klobuchar added to this fear of intimidation of the electorate this November and Senators Rosen and Warnock pointed out that the Trump administration's threat is an attempt to “prevent the American people from making their voices heard this November.”

An action that would violate the law

President Trump and his party allies have accused voter fraud, including claims that millions of undocumented immigrants have voted, although studies have confirmed that these events are rare.

“Part of the initiative to deploy ICE agents at voting sites stems from the administration's insistence, without evidence, that multitudes of noncitizens are voting,” stated a report by the Brennan Center for Justice last March. “Non-citizen voting is illegal and extremely rare.”

Brennan also explained that sending federal agents to voting centers would violate a law passed in 1865.

"Elections are special. There are specific federal and state laws that make these types of actions [the sending of federal agents] illegal," the analysis indicates. “Sending ICE or other armed federal agents to the polls is illegal because federal law prohibits federal officers from interfering in elections.”