Mikie Sherrill Refuses DOJ Request For Information On 6,600 Noncitizens Mistakenly Registered To Vote
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill has rejected a Justice Department request seeking detailed information about the 6,600 noncitizens who were mistakenly registered to vote through the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission, setting up a growing legal and political battle between the Trump administration and the Garden State.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, requested the names, dates of birth, addresses, nationalities, voter registration dates, and other records for the affected individuals after the state disclosed that a software error had improperly placed them on the voter rolls. The DOJ also sought information on the roughly 400 people believed to have cast ballots before the error was discovered.
Sherrill announced Tuesday that her administration would not comply with the request, arguing the Justice Department lacked legal authority to obtain the information. In a letter to Dhillon, the governor said the noncitizens were registered “through no fault of their own” and that New Jersey officials are already working to correct the voter rolls while protecting residents’ personally identifiable information.
Dhillon quickly criticized the governor’s decision, arguing that New Jersey has a legal obligation to maintain accurate voter rolls and cooperate with federal election investigations. She said the state’s refusal to provide the requested records would not prevent the Justice Department from pursuing the information through other legal means and maintained that only U.S. citizens are permitted to vote in federal elections.
The controversy stems from a software malfunction that occurred between 2023 and 2024, when thousands of people who had indicated they were not U.S. citizens while applying for driver’s licenses or identification cards were nevertheless automatically registered to vote. State officials have blamed the error on a breakdown in the Motor Vehicle Commission’s registration system and have begun manually removing the affected registrations while conducting an independent investigation.
The dispute has become another flashpoint in the broader national debate over election integrity. The Trump administration has cited the New Jersey case as additional support for stricter voter verification measures and its ongoing lawsuit seeking access to the state’s voter registration records, while Sherrill argues her administration is correcting the problem without compromising the privacy rights of thousands of New Jersey residents.