Why, YES...Trump sending troops to the polls on election day WOULD BE ILLEGAL. Sorry, John Roberts.
First, it’s clearly illegal: Federal law prohibits stationing “troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” It’s also illegal for members of the military to prevent, or attempt to prevent, an eligible voter from voting and to interfere “in any manner with an election officer’s discharge of his duties.” That could include taking possession of voting machines.
Even the Insurrection Act — which grants the president wide leeway to use the military for domestic law enforcement in emergencies, and which Trump threatened to invoke just last week in Minneapolis — wouldn’t give troops the right to break these laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Second, courts have so far significantly reined in Trump’s existing National Guard deployments — raising questions about whether he’d even have control of the Guard in key states. In December, the Supreme Court signed off on a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from deploying troops to Illinois, whose Democratic governor had challenged his authority to do so. (National Guard troops are usually under the command of their state’s governor.)
The Supreme Court’s order for now functionally limits Trump to deploying the National Guard in states where he has the governor’s consent. And the 2026 midterm elections are likely to be decided in states whose governors mostly aren’t the type to let Trump deploy troops there. Of the 60 U.S. House seats currently listed as “in play” by Inside Elections, an election handicapping website, 38 are in states with Democratic governors.
https://www.salon.com/2026/01/26/trump-regrets-not-calling-up-troops-after-the-2020-election-what-stops-him-in-2026-partner/
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It's illegal to shoot people on main street, but he still does it, via proxy.