DOJ Loses 18th Straight Voter-Roll Lawsuit as Judge Tosses New Jersey Case With Prejudice

Since New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill's admission last week that a software error registered roughly 6,600 noncitizens to vote, the state's election mess has collided with a separate federal court fight over voter privacy. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit seeking New Jersey's full, unredacted voter rolls, handing the Trump administration its 18th straight loss in a nationwide push for state voter data, according to Democracy Docket.

Quraishi, a Biden appointee, ruled the DOJ sued under the wrong law. The department argued Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 gives the attorney general authority to demand election records, including New Jersey's computerized voter registration list with drivers license numbers and partial Social Security numbers attached.

Quraishi didn't buy it. "The plain text of Title III applies only to records 'which come into' election officers' 'possession' and thus does not extend to New Jersey's computerized VRL, a document the State itself created," he wrote, according to both Fox News and Democracy Docket.

The judge also found DOJ's reading would conflict with other federal law. Title III bars altering the records it covers, but the National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act require states to continuously update their voter lists. "Simply stated, this creates a conflict," Quraishi wrote, calling the department's claim to the database "untenable," per Democracy Docket and the Jersey Vindicator.

The dismissal was with prejudice, meaning DOJ can't refile the same claim in that court, though it can appeal, which Democracy Docket noted it has done in nearly every other loss on this issue.

The Noncitizen Registration Problem Is Real, and Separate

This ruling is not a verdict on whether New Jersey has a noncitizen voting problem. It's a ruling about which federal statute lets DOJ demand a state's private voter database.

New Jersey's noncitizen registration problem is real. Sherrill has acknowledged it herself. A "serious software error" in the state's Motor Vehicle Commission system led to roughly 6,600 noncitizens being mistakenly registered to vote, according to Fox News. Sherrill said fewer than 400 of them actually cast ballots, and she ordered an investigation and directed the Division of Elections to start removing ineligible voters.

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., didn't try to spin it away. "In New Jersey, we absolutely need to have accountability for what happened," Kim said. "It was just horrible. There was a big problem with that computer problem that they had. We need to try to address that going forward."

The scandal has since widened. Fox News reported that roughly 75,000 noncitizens were summoned for jury duty through state databases this week, a separate issue from the MVC registration error but one that's fueling broader Republican demands for an independent investigation. State Sen. Declan O'Scanlon has called for New Jersey to pause its automatic voter registration system entirely and open its books to outside scrutiny, possibly including federal oversight.

Democracy Docket reported that DOJ tried to use the noncitizen registration admission to strengthen its case for the voter rolls, filing that argument just nine days before Wednesday's ruling. Quraishi rejected it outright, finding the software error had "no bearing" on whether the department had legal authority to the database under Title III. The judge ruled on the narrow legal question of statutory authority, not on whether New Jersey's voter rolls have real integrity problems worth investigating through other means.

DOJ Isn't Backing Down

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon responded on social media by going after Sherrill directly, not softening the administration's position. "All you are protecting here is illegitimate voters who cancelled out the votes of your own state's citizens, in violation of federal law," Dhillon wrote, according to Democracy Docket. "Stay tuned. This isn't over."

Civil rights groups, meanwhile, framed the ruling as validation of their privacy concerns. The ACLU of New Jersey, representing the League of Women Voters of New Jersey and the Latino Action Network as intervenors in the case, called it a rebuke of what ACLU attorney Liza Weisberg described as the administration's effort to "build an illegal national voter database to intimidate eligible voters and chill civic participation."

DOJ has now lost 18 straight rulings on the legal theory that Title III entitles it to full state voter databases, according to Democracy Docket and the ACLU of New Jersey. That's a real and repeated defeat on a specific legal argument. It says nothing about whether New Jersey's 6,600 mistakenly registered noncitizens, or the 75,000 summoned for jury duty, represent a bigger problem than the state has admitted. DOJ can appeal Wednesday's ruling, and Dhillon has signaled it will. New Jersey's own internal investigation into the MVC software error, and the scope of the jury-duty database issue, remain open questions independent of anything decided in court this week.