U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi rejected the Department of Justice’s request to obtain New Jersey’s unredacted voter rolls.
The decision comes after Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced the state discovered over 6,000 noncitizens registered to vote due to a supposed software error.
The DOJ requested the voter rolls last July as the Trump administration continues to try to secure elections.
The department sued New Jersey in February under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
Title III requires election officials to preserve federal election records for 22 months and make them available to the attorney general.
Quraishi agreed with New Jersey’s argument that Title III’s scope “does not extend to New Jersey’s computerized VRL [voter registration list] – a document the State itself created.”
The judge noted that the “VRL is not a static ‘compilation’ of information from voter registration applications, but rather, is a ‘live, dynamic database’ that includes information from other state agencies and is altered by state officials.”
“The records to which the DOJ has access under Title III are necessarily those that the State may not otherwise modify, like the records of voter registration it receives,” concluded Quraishi. “However, the VRL must be modified regularly as a matter of federal election law.”
Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said that four states had noncitizens on their voter rolls.
The preliminary findings indicated New Jersey has 15,903 noncitizens on its rolls.
The DOJ already opened an investigation into the 6,600 noncitizen registered voters and the 400 who voted in elections.
Sherrill said the DOJ lacks a “legal basis” to request “extensive personal information about thousands of New Jersey residents.”
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division warned Sherrill the fight isn’t over.
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