Overview
- The city of Denver and voting and Latino rights groups filed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, seeking a declaration and an injunction to bar armed ICE and other federal officers from early‑voting sites, drop boxes, curbside locations, and polling places on Election Day.
- Democracy Forward filed the complaint on behalf of LULAC, UnidosUS, Common Cause and Denver and named the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Secretary Markwayne Mullin and acting ICE Director David Venturella as defendants.
- The suit rests on a federal statute that generally bars “troops or armed men” from places where federal elections are held except to repel armed enemies and asks the court to prohibit officers from operating or carrying weapons near sites where votes are taken or counted.
- Administration officials have said ICE will not broadly patrol polls but Secretary Mullin said agents could respond to specific threats or serve warrants, and DHS later said it is not planning targeted operations at polling locations.
- Plaintiffs cite recent reported ICE encounters near polling places and an HSI investigative surge seeking voter‑roll data as reasons the presence of armed federal officers could intimidate voters, disrupt local election administration and chill turnout, and the case was assigned to Judge Loren AliKhan as early voting nears.