DHS cites New Jersey registration errors in arguing for standardized federal oversight
The Department of Homeland Security released a public notice arguing that administrative errors in New Jersey's voter registration demonstrated a need for standardized federal oversight.
What happened
On 31 July the Department of Homeland Security released a public notice arguing that New Jersey's administrative errors demonstrated a need for standardized federal oversight. Those errors had been disclosed by New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, who announced that 6,600 non-citizens had registered to vote because of a software error; fewer than 400 of them voted. The notice is the July link in a run of federal releases across the summer building the case that noncitizens vote in numbers: the White House task force's declassified "election integrity" tranches, a separate July DHS analysis arguing that 278,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in federal elections, and a Census Bureau brief claiming it identified 24,000 noncitizens voting in the 2020 election. The cited source does not date Sherrill's announcement, so the interval between her disclosure and the notice is not established on the record.
Why it matters
A state's own disclosure of a registration error is being used by a federal department as the argument for federal supervision of a function the states administer. The notice is the case being made, in public, by the department that would do the supervising.