U.S. Sen. Susan Collins on Monday said she disagrees with Maine’s Republican gubernatorial nominee Bobby Charles’ plan to invite federal immigration enforcement agents to the Maine polls on Election Day in November.
Speaking to members of the media during a visit to Volk Packaging in Biddeford, the Republican senator, who is running for a sixth term against former Maine Senate president Troy Jackson, said she doesn’t “see the need” for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents there, the Portland Press Herald reported.
“To have ICE presence at polls, I think would intimidate a lot of legitimate American voters,” Collins said. “I just think it would make them very uncomfortable.”
Charles told activists earlier this month that he plans to ask President Donald Trump’s border czar to send ICE agents to Maine polling places this fall.
“I’m going to ask Tom — three or four weeks before the election, maybe three — I’m going to make an appeal for ICE and marshals to be at our voting booths,” Charles said, according to audio obtained exclusively by the Bangor Daily News. “Do you think the illegals who are being paid money are going to like that?”
There is no evidence of people being paid, and what Charles said he’d ask for is likely illegal. The Trump administration has raised the specter of rare noncitizen voting but said it is not planning to send ICE to the polls.
BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed reporting.
