By Andrew Goudsward
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - The Justice Department is demanding data from New Jersey on non-U.S.-citizens the state says were accidentally registered to vote, as the Trump administration seeks to use the errors in its broader fight with states over election security.
In a letter to Democratic New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, the DOJ demanded the state hand over the names, nationalities and addresses of the roughly 6,600 noncitizens who were accidentally signed up to vote between 2023 and 2024.
The department said it also wanted information on the 400 people who New Jersey said cast ballots, including when and where they voted, according to the letter from Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights division.
The letter was the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to pressure states to turn over voter data. Trump has claimed without evidence that November's midterm elections — when his Republican Party will be defending narrow majorities in Congress — could be compromised unless stricter safeguards are adopted.
The DOJ has already threatened to criminally prosecute state officials who knowingly allow noncitizens to remain on their voter lists or cast ballots.
A spokesperson for Sherrill, Sean Higgins, accused the Trump administration of using the DOJ as a political tool and said the governor "has been clear that she will use all the legal tools available to her to protect New Jerseyans' personal information.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that voting by noncitizens poses a major threat to election security. A Reuters analysis identified only 129 federal prosecutions for noncitizen voting in three decades and found that many cases stem from voter confusion or misunderstandings.
Democrats and election experts say attempts to remove noncitizens en masse from voter rolls are likely to disenfranchise many eligible voters, including new U.S. citizens.
Sherrill revealed on Tuesday that a software glitch added about 6,600 noncitizens to the state's voter rolls, even though they said they were not U.S. citizens when applying for driver's licenses or ID cards. Sherrill said there was no evidence the mistake swayed the results of elections.
New Jersey is one of about 30 mostly Democrat-led states that the Justice Department has sued to obtain non-public voter data in an effort to examine whether noncitizens have been allowed to register. The DOJ has lost all 16 cases that have been decided so far, though it is appealing some of those decisions.
Dhillon’s letter said the disclosure on Tuesday “provides an additional basis” for the federal government to examine New Jersey’s voter list.
New Jersey has asked a judge to dismiss the case, arguing the DOJ has no legal authority for its request.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Ross Colvin, Andrea Ricci and Deepa Babington)
