New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Tuesday that she will defy a Justice Department request for information about the identities of the 6,600 non-citizens who were erroneously registered to vote in the Garden State.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, had demanded the names, dates of birth, addresses, nationalities and registration dates of the non-citizens on New Jersey’s voter-rolls – 400 of whom are believed to have cast ballots – on July 21 and gave the Democratic governor a five-day deadline to comply with the request.
“Today, I informed [Dhillon] that New Jersey will not provide the personal information of thousands of New Jersey residents,” Sherrill wrote on X. “The request had no legal basis, and I will always protect New Jerseyans’ personally identifiable information.”
Sherrill included a letter sent to the DOJ official where she explains the non-citizens were registered to vote “through no fault of their own” and that the state and local election officials were “working tirelessly … to rectify this error.”
Dhillon countered by arguing that Sherrill’s “refusal to cooperate with federal law enforcement does nothing to protect law-abiding NJ voters.”
“NJ has a legal duty to keep ineligible voters off its rolls, & our request is grounded in that legal authority,” the DOJ official wrote on X. “DOJ will get this information through all legal means!”
In her initial request for information, Dhillon said the DOJ would be investigating the matter as an “unlawful dilution of American votes.”
The DOJ also cited the debacle in its ongoing lawsuit against the Garden State seeking access to its voter roll data.
Last week, Sherrill blamed a “serious software error” in the state’s Motor Vehicle System involving French tech company IDEMIA for the mishap.
The software company, however, argues that the state’s department of elections is “ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility to vote.”
Sherrilll has also faced criticism for slamming President Trump’s July 16 comments about election integrity even though she may have already known about the major voter registration problem in her state.
Following Trump’s address, Sherrill signed on to a statement with 23 other Democratic governors calling Trump’s comments about non-citizens being registered to vote and Chinese efforts to interfere in US elections “deeply alarming” and an attempt by the president to “undermine free and fair elections”
Sherrill’s co-signed statement went on to accuse Trump of trying to “intimidate and silence voters” while claiming Democrats are the ones “actually making life better for American families by lowering costs, creating jobs and protecting our freedoms.”
Dhillon claims Sherrill already “knew” thousands of non-citizens were registered to vote in New Jersey but “still went online and called the president a liar and said he was exaggerating.
“Shame on you, governor,” the DOJ official added.
