NJ Dem Governor Pledges Transparency, Blocks Election Docs

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill unloaded on her predecessor this week in announcing that Garden State election officials found some 6,600 noncitizens on their voter rolls — about 400 of whom voted in elections.

Democrat Sherrill — a leftist identifying as a moderate — threw under the bus former Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, for “reckless failures” and an absence of transparency.

“This failure didn’t occur under my watch, but accountability starts now,” the new governor said in a statement. “I am taking action to prevent anything like it from occurring in the future and make sure those responsible are held accountable.”

But the same old transparency problems remain.

‘Subject to Voter Public Records Laws’

An official from the New Jersey Department of State’s Division of Elections said it would not fulfill The Federalist’s request for voter records on the thousands of noncitizens that appeared on the state’s voter registration database. The Federalist asked for the files in part to determine party affiliation of the registered noncitizens, particularly the individuals said to have voted.

Sherrill said the foreign nationals “were registered as Democrats, Republicans, and majority unaffiliated and were scattered across the state.” But she has refused to provide anything close to specific numbers.

Alicia D’Alessandro, senior adviser in the New Jersey Department of State’s communications department, said the information would not be released while a state investigation into the matter continues. She could not say when the records would be available to the public.

While government officials may block the release of records during an ongoing investigation, voting information is a matter of public record under provisions in the National Voter Registration Act.

“Because voter registration forms and voter lists are government documents, they are often subject to public records laws,” the Election Assistance Commission notes in an explainer on its website. Voter files cannot include information about who an individual voted for in any election, but they can “include a voter’s partisan affiliation, which elections the voter participated in, or the voter’s method of voting.”

The Federalist is filing an open records request with the state for the records.

‘Preserve Any and All Records’

Blocking documents is not a good look for a governor who claims she won’t be like the last guy who wasn’t transparent. Sherrill won’t even turn over the information to the Department of Justice, which on Tuesday gave the state five business days to release it.

As The Federalist reported, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, is seeking the names of the 6,600 individuals identified  — their “full names, dates of birth, nationalities, residential addresses, and registration dates and locations.”

Sherrill divulged the software“glitch” she claims caused the oversight on Tuesday at a press conference. In it, she unironically accused President Donald Trump of making “bizarre conspiracy theories about fraud with no evidence” as the Democrat announced evidence of noncitizens on her state’s voting rolls.

Dhillon also wants Jersey election officials to detail to the DOJ “when and where” the noncitizens voted and provide the certification and signature, required under New Jersey law, for those who voted by mail ballot.

“Additionally, please treat this correspondence as a request to preserve any and all records relating to today’s disclosure,” Dhillon wrote.

Sherrill tried to hide behind her Trump Derangement Syndrome in telling media outlets that her administration has no intention of releasing the information to the DOJ.

“We are not in the practice of turning over this kind of personally identifying data over to the federal government because we have seen them weaponize it, I’ve seen it personally,” Sherrill told Democracy Docket, operated by Russia Collusion hoax peddler and leftist lawfare kingpin Marc Elias. “They are working to weaponize personal data, and they don’t have a reputation for keeping it private either.”

Election law expert Hans von Spakovsky tells The Federalist Sherrill and New Jersey’s leftist resistance movement don’t have much of a legal leg to stand on. Perhaps they should consult the transparency provisions in the National Voter Registration Act (NRVA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), he said.

‘Failure of This Magnitude’

“An important point about the New Jersey story is that the 6,600 aliens were those who checked ‘noncitizen’ on the form but were registered by the state anyway. And that is how the state was able to find them when it finally realized what was happening,” said von Spakovksy, senior legal fellow with The Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom.

“What we don’t know is how many aliens registered who falsely checked ‘yes’ that they were citizens. Since New Jersey does no citizenship verification, we don’t know what that number is. But clearly 6,600 is not the total of aliens in New Jersey registered to vote.”

Lots of questions remain unanswered as Sherrill promises “accountability.’

Von Spakovsky’s comments underscore the urgency for passage of the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote.

Late Friday afternoon Rep. Van Drew, R-N.J., and 18 of his House Republican colleagues sent a letter to Sherrill demanding answers.

“When the state uncovers a failure of this magnitude, it cannot simply acknowledge the problem and move on,” the 2nd District congressman said in a press release. “If New Jersey’s system failed even when non-citizens openly identified themselves, then the public deserves to know what protections are in place. This right here is exactly why we should require ID to vote in our elections. We need answers about how this happened, why it was not caught sooner, whether more ineligible registrations remain, and what is being done right now to secure our voter rolls.”

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.