Mikie Sherrill Refuses DOJ Demand for Data on NJ Noncitizen Voters, Citing Privacy Laws

New Jersey will not cooperate with a federal demand for data on the approximately 6,600 noncitizens accidentally added to the state’s voter rolls in 2023 and 2024, Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration announced on Tuesday.

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The decision escalates what has become a nationally watched dispute between Sherrill and the Trump administration, one that has exacerbated long-fraught debates over voter fraud and election integrity. Dhillon said the Department of Justice will continue to pursue the voter records “through all legal means,” though it’s not immediately clear what that might entail.

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Sherrill announced last week that between June 2023 and June 2024 — when her predecessor, fellow Democrat Phil Murphy, was in office — a software error at the state Motor Vehicles Commission allowed thousands of noncitizens to register to vote, with around 400 subsequently casting ballots. The contractor at the center of the debacle has denied the existence of an error, saying that the state’s own systems are to blame for allowing ineligible residents onto the voter rolls.

Regardless of who was at fault, the legal consequences for the voters themselves could be steep. Top Trump administration officials have indicated they may seek to prosecute and deport the noncitizens who voted — a potential outcome Sherrill has called “the utmost hypocrisy,” given that it was a government mistake that let them vote in the first place.

Shortly after Sherrill disclosed the error, the DOJ asked for the “full names, dates of birth, nationalities, residential addresses, and registration dates and locations” of the 6,600 mistakenly registered noncitizens, as well as information on the elections that included ballots cast by noncitizens. (Sherrill has said she does not believe any election results were swayed because of the error.)

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