A federal judge handed Gov. Mikie Sherrill and a broad coalition of voting-rights advocates a major victory Wednesday, dismissing with prejudice a Trump administration lawsuit seeking New Jersey’s complete voter-registration database, including confidential driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi granted a motion to dismiss filed by Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell, who also serves as secretary of state, and rejected the U.S. Department of Justice’s expansive interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
“This Court disagrees,” Quraishi wrote in his 17-page opinion. “As a threshold but dispositive matter, the State’s computerized (voter-registration list) is outside the scope of Title III’s inspection provision.”
The dismissal with prejudice prevents the Justice Department from refiling the case under the same legal theory, although the Trump administration may appeal.
The ruling was also a significant victory for advocacy organizations and individual voters who intervened to support New Jersey’s refusal to turn over confidential voter information.
“We are grateful for the district court’s decision, which correctly found that DOJ’s demand for voters’ personal information lacked support in federal law. Every court to consider the question, now totaling seventeen district courts and a federal court of appeals, have unanimously rejected this clear federal overreach,” said Attorney General Jennifer Davenport. “We will continue to act in accordance with federal and state law and protect New Jerseyans’ privacy and people’s personal information.”
Among the intervenors was Jeopardy! champion Jamie Ding, who joined Danielle Litwak and Make the Road New Jersey in opposing the Justice Department’s demand.
The Justice Department first requested New Jersey’s statewide voter-registration list in July 2025, citing concerns about the state’s voter-registration rate and procedures for maintaining the rolls. New Jersey supplied the publicly available voter list but withheld protected personal information.
The state also gave federal officials descriptions of its list-maintenance procedures, its methods for removing ineligible voters and the identities of the election officials responsible for those programs.
But the Justice Department demanded an unredacted database containing all fields, including each voter’s driver’s license number or the final four digits of their Social Security number. It argued that the Civil Rights Act gave the attorney general sweeping authority to inspect election records.
Quraishi ruled that the statute applies to records that “come into” the possession of election officials, such as voter-registration applications, and not to an electronic database created and continuously maintained by the state.
“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 [voter-registration list] — a document the State itself created,” Quraishi wrote.
The judge described the statewide voter file as a “live, dynamic database” that incorporates information from multiple government agencies and is regularly changed by election officials.
Federal law requires states to continually update their voter databases. But the 1960 Civil Rights Act makes it a crime to alter records covered by its preservation requirements. Quraishi said adopting the Justice Department’s position would put the Civil Rights Act in conflict with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.
“Simply stated, this creates a conflict,” he wrote.
The ruling came eight days after Sherrill disclosed that a Motor Vehicle Commission software failure had erroneously registered approximately 6,600 self-identified noncitizens between June 2023 and June 2024. Fewer than 400 of them cast ballots.
The Justice Department cited that disclosure as an additional justification for obtaining the unredacted database, but Quraishi said it had no bearing on the legal question before him.
“Whether the DOJ is acting in good faith is not relevant to this Court’s analysis and has no bearing on whether Plaintiff is entitled to the information it seeks,” Quraishi wrote.
Quraishi noted that at least 16 other federal district courts and one federal appeals court have rejected similar voter-data lawsuits brought by the Justice Department against states and local election officials.
“For the reasons set forth below, this Court therefore joins at least sixteen other district courts — including a sister court — and one circuit in dismissing Plaintiff’s claim,” he wrote.
The judge denied the Justice Department’s motion to compel the records as moot.
Other intervenors included the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, League of Women Voters of New Jersey, Latino Action Network, NAACP and its New Jersey State Conference, Salvation and Social Justice, AAPI New Jersey, Returning Citizens Support Group; the Association of Black Women Lawyers of New Jersey; Garden State Bar Association; New Jersey Muslim Lawyers Association; and the People’s Organization for Progress.
Liza Weisberg, an ACLU of New Jersey supervising attorney, called the ruling “a strong rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to abuse federal power to gain access to voters’ private data and undermine trust in our elections.
“The administration is seeking this information for pretextual purposes as it attempts to build an illegal national voter database to intimidate eligible voters and chill civic participation,” Weisberg said. “We’ll keep fighting back.”
The Democratic National Committee and United Black Agenda also intervened, while the Brennan Center for Justice and Campaign Legal Center submitted arguments in the case.