GOP Senate candidate recruiting off-duty Detroit cops to intimidate voters

By Brentin Mock

NOVI, MICHIGAN - NOVEMBER 05: Republican US Senate candidate Mike Rogers speaks at his election watch party with the MIGOP on November 5, 2024 in Novi, Michigan. Rogers and Democrat Elissa Slotkin are competing for the seat vacated by the retiring Debbie Stabenow. (Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images)

Mike Rogers, a leading Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Michigan, recently told a GOP group that he’s recruiting former and active police officers to serve as poll watchers in Detroit for the upcoming election, according to The Detroit News.

“You know what, let’s put police officers — retired or off-duty police officers — as our poll watchers in Detroit,” said Rogers, according to audio the paper obtained from a meeting of the Kalamazoo County Republican Party in April. “Because, go ahead: Try to intimidate them. Please.”

“We’re trying to find them,” added Rogers, a longtime former congressman who chaired the powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “I mean, they wouldn’t be able to wear their uniforms, but they would, you know, all you got to do is open your jacket and you see the badge on the belt, right?” Rogers added.

It is illegal to intimidate voters and a federal crime for anyone — including federal, state, and local officials — to “intimidate, threaten, [or] coerce … any other person for the purpose of interfering with the right of [that] other person to vote or to vote as he may choose.” Voter intimidation is also prohibited under state law in most states.

Rogers’ effort arrives at a time when the Trump administration is trying to access ballot information from prior elections, driven by false claims that Detroit poll workers helped rig the 2020 vote against Donald Trump. 

Trump, himself, said in 2020, during his first term as president, that he wanted to send sheriffs and police to the polls for that year’s elections, which he lost to Joe Biden. He more recently expressed regret that he didn’t follow through with those plans. 

Rogers doubled down on his remarks in a statement to The Detroit News from his spokesperson Alyssa Brouillet. 

“Mike believes we need people of integrity, such as teachers, retired law enforcement, and construction workers, to step up to the plate and volunteer to ensure Michiganders have elections they can count on,” Brouillet said.