Arlington, Virginia sues to keep armed federal agents away from the polls as voting gets underway

Arlington County, Virginia, sued the Trump administration Tuesday to stop armed federal agents from operating at and near polling places, arguing that their threatened presence at voting sites is already alarming voters just two weeks before Election Day.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, challenges policies that Arlington says authorize armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and FBI agents to conduct enforcement operations at polling places and other election sites during the 2026 midterms.

The county* is asking the court to block those policies and prohibit armed federal personnel from operating at polling sites, early voting sites, drop boxes and curbside voting locations in Arlington, except in the extraordinarily narrow circumstance permitted by federal law.

At the center of the case is a Civil War-era law, 18 U.S.C. § 592, that bars federal officials from bringing or keeping armed personnel at a place where an election is being held unless they are needed to “repel armed enemies of the United States.” Arlington alleges that the administration’s claimed authority to send armed agents to polling places for immigration enforcement, serving warrants or election-related investigations runs directly into that prohibition.

What makes Arlington’s lawsuit significant is where it comes from. 

Arlington itself administers elections, operates polling places and funds the local police and prosecutors responsible for maintaining order around them. The county says the threat of federal intervention has already forced officials to prepare for scenarios they have never confronted before, including developing guidance for encounters with federal agents and conducting emergency exercises involving election officials, police and prosecutors. 

“[Arlington] had to develop a plan for responding to the presence of armed federal agents at polling places—including communications protocols, whether and how to make arrests, and any prosecutorial response or civil legal actions that might be necessary,” the county wrote in its complaint. “Arlington has never before needed to prepare for these threat scenarios.”

Arlington County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said the county is acting to protect voters from fear and disruption.

“Threatening to send armed agents to polling stations is unlawful and contravenes the bedrock values of free and fair elections we hold dear in this country,” de Ferranti said. “These statements are a clear attempt to stoke fear and undermine confidence in our elections. The Arlington County Board will do all we can to protect our voters and their right to vote.”

The case is the fourth federal lawsuit filed in recent weeks specifically seeking to stop armed federal law enforcement from operating at polling places during the midterms. 

The first, filed Sept. 10 by LULAC, Common Cause, UnidosUS and the City and County of Denver, challenged DHS and ICE policies under the same federal prohibition on armed agents at election sites. Hennepin County, Minnesota, later joined that case. 

On Sept. 18, the NAACP and a coalition of civil rights and labor organizations filed a separate lawsuit arguing that threats of armed federal agents at polling places violate Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits intimidation, threats and coercion related to voting. 

Five days later, Democratic congressional campaign committees, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) filed another challenge seeking to block armed federal officers from polling places.

Those three cases were all filed in Washington, D.C. 

Arlington’s case is different in that the county is suing in its home federal district and grounding its claims in the immediate costs of running an election under the threat of federal intervention. It also raises a Tenth Amendment claim, arguing that the federal government is intruding on authority reserved to states and localities to administer elections. 

The lawsuit also lands amid fresh concerns about voter intimidation in Northern Virginia. Days before Arlington filed its case, anonymous flyers appeared on dozens of cars in nearby Alexandria. The flyers bore a Department of Homeland Security logo, cited laws prohibiting noncitizens from voting and provided a hotline to report alleged immigration and voting violations. 

Surveillance video appeared to show a person distributing them around 4 a.m.

DHS has said it was not involved in distributing the flyers, and the identity of whoever produced or distributed them remains unknown. Alexandria police have been investigating. But their appearance during early voting, just weeks before Election Day, has added another layer of anxiety to an election already shadowed by questions about whether armed federal agents could appear where voters cast their ballots.

For Arlington officials, that uncertainty is precisely the problem. Their lawsuit asks the court to block the prospect of armed federal agents the polls by the Nov. 3 election.

*Democracy Forward represents the county plaintiff in this case. Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias is the chair of Democracy Forward’s board.