The state that found the error refused to be punished with it. At a press conference Thursday, Governor Mikie Sherrill declined the Justice Department's demand for New Jersey's voter data, and said why: 'We are not in the practice of turning this kind of personally identifying data over to the federal government because we have seen them weaponize it' [1]. Her office said she will use 'all the legal tools available' [1].
The demand came from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, under Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, in a July 21 letter that gave New Jersey five business days - to roughly July 28 - to hand over records [1]. It is tied to the software error that registered about 6,600 people who had answered 'no' to the citizenship question, fewer than 400 of whom voted [1][2].
The error was the state's own finding. New Jersey audited its rolls, disclosed the bug, began removing the registrations, and is replacing the vendor; Sherrill says no result changed and the affected registrants are politically diverse [2]. The federal response was to demand every voter's data; the state's response, Thursday, was to refuse [1].
What that turns the standoff into is a contest with a clock, not a data transfer [1]. As of tonight, no state lawsuit has been filed, and the five-day federal deadline runs toward July 28 [1].
The question underneath it has not changed since the demand landed: whether a disclosed, self-corrected vendor bug is grounds for federal access to the personal data of every voter in a state [1]. New Jersey has now answered it out loud - no - and put its legal weight behind the word [1].
