Hundreds of National Guard troops are activated or on standby ahead of Election Day

The National Guard has hundreds of troops activated or on standby across the country to defend against cyber attacks and support operations during Tuesday’s presidential election.

About 125 guardsmen are currently working on operations across 10 states. More states and Washington, D.C., have put units on stand-by and plan to activate them on Tuesday or later in the week, increasing the total number of guardsmen to roughly 250 total, according to a defense official. 

The states with current missions include Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Washington state. Units are on standby in Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. Oregon also has some on standby. 

States are preparing for all possibilities as U.S. intelligence agencies warn of potential civil unrest on and after Election Day. Oregon and Washington began activating guardsmen after ballot boxes were set on fire in their states.

But as of now, none of the National Guard units are in “a civil disturbance or civil response mode. They're in general support or in supporting cyber networks,” said Ellis Hopkins, deputy division chief for NGB current operations. 

In recent years, the National Guard has been stepping up its cyber support around election time to ward off potential attacks.

The guardsmen will only be activated or on standby during election week, Hopkins said. 

In January, the National Guard will send troops to support the presidential inauguration; more than two dozen states have signed up to send help, said Col. Jean Paul Laurenceau, NGB’s chief of future operations. The Bureau hasn’t received an official request for assistance from the DC Guard for the inauguration, but historically they’ve activated about 4,000 to 6,000 troops for the event, he said. 

When a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol as Congress certified the election on Jan. 6, 2021, it took the National Guard hours to help Capitol Police restore order—due to miscommunication and confusion over whether the Guard could deploy.

Laurenceau said the Guard still hasn’t planned for the “rules of the use of force” in 2025 because they haven’t received the request for assistance yet, which will dictate what they’re able to do.

“One of the things we'll do is publish that rule on the use of force to all our soldiers, and that's one of the key training that they will go through as they make their way into D.C. But the No. 1 thing is that part of that rules on the use of force is that this is a civilian-supported mission, and so when you start talking about what you're able to do [and] where, it really is very important to us that we understand that, and that's what we'll understand and adhere specifically to that,” he said.