A federal judge has dismissed the Department of Justice’s effort to gain access to New Jersey’s unredacted voter rolls, granting the state’s desire to continue withholding voters’ personally identifiable information from the federal government.
The decision from District Judge Zahid Quraishi comes amid a broader fight between the Trump administration and Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill over New Jersey’s voter rolls, though the two are not strictly related. The DOJ’s lawsuit was filed months ago, while Sherrill disclosed last week that the state had accidentally added 6,600 noncitizens to its voter rolls in 2023 and 2024.
In July 2025, the DOJ sent a letter to New Jersey officials asking for a copy of the state’s full voter registration list, part of its nationwide effort to obtain voter records. New Jersey’s Division of Elections complied with the request but omitted voters’ driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, citing privacy concerns.
That prompted a multi-month back and forth with the DOJ over whether those data would be provided, ultimately resulting in a lawsuit filed in February that sought to compel the state to release the missing records — one of dozens of similar lawsuits the Trump administration has brought against state election administrators around the country.
“The Justice Department will continue to fulfill its oversight role dutifully, neutrally, and transparently wherever Americans vote in federal elections,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the leader of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said when the lawsuit was filed. “Many state election officials, however, are choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work.”
Quraishi, who did not hear oral arguments in the matter, ruled on several different grounds that the DOJ cannot compel New Jersey to release its unredacted records — and noted that judges in more than a dozen other states have come to the same conclusion in parallel cases.
“This Court … joins at least sixteen other district courts including a sister court — and one circuit — in dismissing Plaintiff’s claim,” Quraishi wrote.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said that her office was “grateful” for Quraishi’s decision. “Every court to consider the question, now totaling seventeen district courts and a federal court of appeals, have unanimously rejected this clear federal overreach,” she said.
Quraishi may not have the last word on the matter, however; the DOJ said in a brief statement that it “disagree[s] with the court’s decision and will appeal.”
The status of New Jersey’s voter rolls took on national import last week when Sherrill revealed that a Motor Vehicle Commission error allowed thousands of citizens to register to vote between June 2023 and June 2024. Around 400 of those noncitizens, Sherrill said, cast ballots in at least one subsequent election.
The Trump administration quickly leapt on the issue as evidence of voter fraud, which the president has long alleged is rampant in Democratic-run states. The DOJ demanded Sherrill release information on the 6,600 noncitizens added to the rolls, a request that Sherrill formally rejected on Tuesday.
Yet another fight over New Jersey’s voter lists has also been playing out in court in recent months; last week, a different district judge rebuffed the Republican National Committee’s attempt to access state voter roll data.
Read the full article here