Detection Dogs at Polling Stations

By Amy Fernandez

Detection dogs at the polls. Traditionally, voting was a humdrum task. Go to the polls, stand in line, vote, end of story. Times have changed. A recent New Jersey PD ceremony made that clear. The honorees in this case were K9s, bomb sniffing K9s. And those 28 dogs were real busy last year on election day. New Jersey is a small state, which belies the lively efforts to disrupt voting in November 2024.

Calling in a bomb threat is equally malicious and effortless. Responding to it is not. An evacuation and bomb search is lengthy and painstaking, requiring multiple officers doing multiple sweeps and most likely halting the day’s voting at that location. Obviously, that’s the agenda.

Joke’s on them. After evacuating the building, one K9 can do the job in 20 minutes. That’s a good thing because, according to a December 26 Times article, seven states across the country confronted nonstop attempts to disrupt voting in November 2024. As one election official conceded, “It’s absolutely the new normal.”

This article focused on the New Jersey K9 teams responsible for that seamless security. For their work, 28 K9s and their handlers received the Selfless Service Award. Recipients included German Shepherds, Malinois, Labs, and Goldens. Some of them came to New Jersey law enforcement via the usual Eastern Euopean dog brokers, others were American-bred, and one was actually a rescue.

It’s no secret that local law enforcement agencies are rarely offered top-tier K9 recruits. In that sense, it’s a bidding war. No local PD can compete with foreign governments and the US military. That’s a disadvantage in some respects, but not for detection dogs. Detection dogs, unlike other types of K9 work that demand daunting physical skills, detection only requires a well-tuned canine nose, and that feature is standard dog equipment.  Dogs and handlers undergo a few months of training and testing, which is augmented with annual recertification. Still time-consuming and costly, but it’s doable.

And that’s the thing. The demand for detection K9s is growing in tandem with the problem. Many states are planning to station k9s at polling sites ahead of the 2026 elections to get a jump on the inevitable swatting incidents, bomb scares, and any other crackpot nonsense that’s bound to occur. One K9 team can conduct two sweeps of a site in 20 minutes. If the dog fails to alert, voting can quickly resume. As multiple studies have shown, the presence of a K9 also imparts a sense of security.

Free and fair elections are something taken for granted in this country. These detection dog teams are helping to ensure that it stays that way.

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Posted by Liz on Jan 24 2026. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.