The federal lawsuit targets Lt. Gov. and Secretary of State Dale Caldwell and county election officials after New Jersey disclosed that thousands of people who said they were not U.S. citizens were mistakenly registered to vote.

TRENTON, NJ — New Jersey Republicans and the Republican National Committee have taken the Sherrill administration to federal court over access to voter-registration records after the state acknowledged that roughly 6,600 people who indicated they were not U.S. citizens were improperly placed on New Jersey’s voter rolls.

The complaint, filed Tuesday, Sept. 22, names Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell in his official capacity as New Jersey secretary of state and chief election official, along with election administrators in Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties. Gov. Mikie Sherrill herself is not named as a defendant.

The plaintiffs include the Republican National Committee, New Jersey Republican State Committee, U.S. Rep. Tom Kean Jr. and state Senate Republican Leader Anthony Bucco.

Republicans Want Records Showing What Happened to Voter Rolls

The lawsuit centers on records Republicans requested July 31 under the federal National Voter Registration Act.

They are seeking information about how New Jersey identifies potentially ineligible voters, removes registrations, handles inactive registrations and communicates with state and federal agencies regarding voter-list maintenance.

Republicans contend Caldwell’s office and county election officials failed to provide records they say federal law makes available for public inspection.

The NJGOP said Wednesday that the lawsuit seeks a court order forcing election officials to release the records.

“The administration has acknowledged that approximately 6,600 people who indicated they were not U.S. citizens were registered to vote,” NJGOP Chairwoman Christine Giordano Hanlon said. “New Jersey voters have a right to know how this happened, how these registrations were identified, and what steps are being taken to ensure it does not happen again.”

“Transparency cannot stop at a press conference,” Hanlon added.

New Jersey Admitted Thousands Were Improperly Registered

The litigation follows a major disclosure by the Sherrill administration this summer involving New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission.

State officials said a software error operating between June 2023 and June 2024 transmitted people into the voter-registration system even after they selected “No” when asked whether they were United States citizens.

According to the state’s official explanation of the MVC voter-registration error, approximately 6,600 people were improperly registered during that period.

Sherrill announced the problem publicly July 21, saying it occurred before she took office and ordering an investigation and review of the affected registrations.

By Aug. 19, the administration said approximately 5,100 registrations had been placed in deleted status because those people had been registered solely through the software error and lacked another registration or attestation of eligibility.

Another roughly 1,450 registrations were shifted to rejected status pending further county-level review.

About 340 People Registered Through Error Cast Ballots

The voting figures have become a central part of the controversy.

The Sherrill administration said approximately 340 people who were newly registered through the software error later voted.

That figure requires an important distinction: the state has established that those individuals had answered “No” to the citizenship question during the MVC transaction that led to their registration. The state has not publicly established that every person in that group was, in fact, a noncitizen at the time a ballot was cast.

The administration separately identified approximately 220 affected people who voted but also had earlier registrations or other attestations indicating potentially valid registrations. Those cases were sent to county officials for additional review.

State officials have said they found no evidence that ballots connected to the software problem changed the outcome of an election.

Lawsuit Targets Caldwell, Not Sherrill Personally

While Republicans have repeatedly focused criticism on Sherrill’s administration, the new federal case does not name the governor personally as a defendant.

Caldwell is named because, as secretary of state, he serves as New Jersey’s chief election official and oversees the Division of Elections. Election officials from the five counties are also defendants.

The plaintiffs are asking a federal judge to declare that the election officials violated the National Voter Registration Act’s disclosure requirements and order production of the requested voter-list maintenance records.

A spokesperson for Caldwell did not respond to the New Jersey Monitor’s request for comment on the lawsuit.

Sherrill spokesman Steve Sigmund defended the administration’s handling of voter records, saying the governor was working to clean up the rolls and protect election information.

Republicans Have Been Pressing the Issue for Months

The fight predates New Jersey’s July disclosure.

Republicans previously sought voter-list information from the state and have called for a broader audit extending beyond the June 2023-to-June 2024 period affected by the acknowledged software problem.

In August, the NJGOP said records it obtained from election offices suggested registrations involving people identified as noncitizens also occurred outside the one-year software-error window. That is a Republican Party claim based on its review of records, not a finding announced by state election officials.

An earlier RNC lawsuit involving voter-registration records was dismissed in July after a federal judge found the organization lacked standing to pursue that particular claim. The court did not resolve the broader political dispute over the accuracy of New Jersey’s voter rolls.

The latest case now places the voter-registration controversy back before a federal judge as New Jersey election officials continue reviewing registrations affected by the MVC error.

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