Threats of ICE at the polls may be a fear tactic. Arizona is preparing anyway.

On a recent weeknight, standing at the head of a small room in a nondescript office building, Karime Rodriguez projected a map of metro Phoenix onto the wall.

The green dots, she explained, represented voting sites. The red ones were reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity that her organization, Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, had vetted and verified over the last year and a half.

In some areas, the green and red dots overlapped. That was the inspiration for LUCHA’s event—a training for those interested in keeping an eye out for federal agents at voting locations in November.

It’s a possibility that has loomed large in Arizona since earlier this year, when some of the state’s farthest-right lawmakers proposed now-dead legislation that would have forced counties into agreements with federal agents to monitor voting sites during this year’s elections.

And, in May, when asked whether he would deploy ICE or the National Guard to voting sites, President Donald Trump said he would do “anything necessary” to ensure “honest elections.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told Votebeat that ICE does not plan to patrol polling places. But they left open the possibility that agents could respond to threats or serve warrants nearby.

Experts and election officials broadly say that deploying armed federal agents or military troops to the polls is clearly barred by federal law and would likely be abruptly slapped down in court. Arizona law also prohibits a wide range of behavior that could intimidate voters, and experts say armed agents at the polls would likely violate those statutes.

But even the possibility of such a deployment—or immigration enforcement activity near, but not at, voting sites—could discourage people from voting. As a result, election officials and voting rights groups across Arizona are preparing for such scenarios, even though they may not materialize.

That includes LUCHA. Though only a handful of people attended its recent training, the organization says it has trained hundreds of poll observers—more than ever before—to respond if they see ICE or other federal law enforcement at the polls, primarily by documenting the incident and reporting it to community groups. Rodriguez described the efforts as preparing to meet “a serious moment.”

“The threat is just so great,” said Alejandra Gomez, the group’s executive director, adding that “anything, unfortunately, is possible to stop people from being able to vote.”

Some have questioned what Trump and his allies would gain by sending ICE to the polls and suggested that the idea is merely an intimidation tactic.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said he believes the threats aim to “diminish voters’ motivation to vote.” Ben Ginsberg, a longtime GOP election lawyer, agreed, adding that ICE or troops at voting sites is “a really unlikely scenario.”

“You drop the rumors and the innuendo and that does, they hope, have a suppressive effect on who goes out to the polls,” Ginsberg said. “I think it is a whole lot tougher, just as a practical matter, to actually put people at the polls … not only the legal problem with it, but I really do think there’d be a huge political backlash, and it would potentially taint the elections.”

Voting rights organizations say even intimidation is a huge problem. They’re scrambling to respond through observer programs, lawsuits, and more.

One such group, Mi Familia en Acción of Phoenix, joined eight others last month in filing a preliminary complaint in federal court that aims to block officers from the polls.

Others are laying the groundwork for a swift legal response. The ACLU of Arizona sent a letter to each of the state’s counties outlining applicable federal and state laws that prohibit the presence of troops or armed federal agents at the polls.

“Because it has never been categorically ruled out, and because the administration has floated the idea repeatedly, counties should not treat this as a remote or hypothetical concern,” the letter read. “Preparation and clear policy now will prevent a crisis later.”

Katelynn Contreras, a policy strategist at the ACLU of Arizona and one of the authors of the memo, said it aimed to ensure counties, particularly those with few resources, had a clear outline of voter intimidation statutes and weren’t “caught on the back foot” if federal agents showed up.

“Some of the smaller counties perhaps don’t have the capacity or have the legal know-how of how all of these inner workings with federal statutes, state statute and the various voting rights constitutional amendments interplay,” she told Votebeat. “So, we wanted to provide that resource to them.”

Meanwhile, LUCHA and its partner groups are tracking immigration enforcement already occurring in predominantly Latino communities across the state. Rodriguez told those assembled for observer training that the organization has repeatedly seen immigration enforcement activities near schools, churches and other places that serve as community institutions—and, during election season, as neighborhood polling sites.

There was at least one sighting of ICE agents near a voting site on the day of the state primary. The agents were spotted near 67th Avenue and Indian School Road in Maryvale, a heavily Latino and largely residential neighborhood in Phoenix.

About a half-mile down the street—past a grocery store, a pediatric dentist, an elementary school, a YMCA and a Boys & Girls Club—voters cast ballots at the Cartwright School District Annex. Rodriguez said the reports indicated that agents were “circling” neighborhoods near the voting site. 

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declined to explain what ICE agents were doing in the area, citing “operational security” and officer safety concerns.

“Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country, including in Arizona,” the spokesperson said. The agency also provided a short list of individuals arrested in Arizona by ICE agents, complete with mugshots.

It’s unclear if ICE’s presence deterred anyone from voting that day. But Rodriguez said her group has used the incident as an example of what observers could see in November. 

“It was a reminder that this work is not theoretical. It is a response to what is actually happening on the ground,” she said.

Most of Arizona’s election officials have been preparing for an array of potential federal interference scenarios since before the state primary.

Those include ICE or the National Guard appearing at the polls, federal civil rights monitors—a routine part of elections since the 1960s—interfering with voting, or federal agents showing up at counties’ election centers with warrants.

At the state level, Fontes said he wouldn’t “speculate” about how his office would respond to federal interference scenarios, and he doubted one would arise in November. But he acknowledged that he and Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes planned to be “well enough prepared to be able to present the appropriate information to courts, if it becomes necessary.”

“Obviously, we’re going to have, and we’ve already had, and we will continue to have, conversations about those possibilities,” he said.

Officials have been weighing how to respond at the county level, too—particularly in Arizona’s larger jurisdictions. Pima County Attorney Laura Conover, a Democrat, told reporters earlier this year that her office was “going to protect our community.” Her remarks suggested that she had already drafted litigation to handle federal agents, rogue federal monitors or armed vigilante groups at the polls in the county, the second-most populous in the state and home to bright-blue Tucson.

“It doesn’t matter what uniform you’re wearing or what agency you claim, you cannot violate state law,” she said on July 10, weeks before the state primary, which appeared to run uneventfully in Pima County. “We expect anyone who visits us from a national level to do any kind of observing—which the law does allow—we expect them to follow the law. That will be the expectation. Should they not, then we are prepared to go straight into court with that information.”

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly confirmed at a conference last month that local prosecutors “already have all the paperwork ready.” She said she was not expecting to see federal agents at the polls, but if they appeared, a staffer would “literally run to a judge who will issue a restraining order.”

“We have had the meetings,” Cázares-Kelly, a Democrat, said. “We have a plan in place.”

In neighboring Pinal County, a tabletop exercise last month simulated what might happen if a federal officer showed up at the deep-red county’s election headquarters in Florence, a small town roughly halfway between Phoenix and Tucson.

One elections staffer noted that the county had a new, formal policy for such situations. Under its provisions, he would immediately contact county attorneys and await their guidance. One attorney noted that even if the agent had a warrant, they’d still want to see it and ensure its legitimacy.

Recorder Dana Lewis, a Republican, told Votebeat that the new guideline was put into place following the FBI’s search of an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, earlier this year.

“Most people are good, godfearing, law-abiding citizens—they wouldn’t know what to do if a federal agent showed up and said, ‘Hi, I’m here to speak with the recorder,’” she said. “So, we had to establish that.”

Lewis added that she didn’t expect to see federal law enforcement at her voting sites on Election Day. After all, she said, “there’s nothing here that could possibly be of concern.”

“But it’s one of those things,” she said. “I never know what’s going to happen.”

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.