A Biden-appointed federal judge dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit to force New Jersey to hand over its unredacted voter registration database, even as the state acknowledged that thousands of noncitizens wound up on its rolls through a government software failure.

U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi ruled Wednesday that the DOJ had no legal authority under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 to compel New Jersey to surrender its complete voter file, including voters' driver's license numbers and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. The 17-page decision, issued without oral argument, marks the 18th consecutive time a federal district court has rejected the DOJ's effort to obtain unredacted voter data from states, the Washington Examiner reported.

The DOJ said it will appeal. But the ruling lands at a moment that makes the outcome especially difficult to accept: just days earlier, Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed that a software failure at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission caused roughly 6,600 noncitizens to be improperly added to the state's voter rolls between June 2023 and June 2024. Approximately 400 of those noncitizens cast ballots in at least one subsequent election.

Quraishi called the DOJ's legal theory "untenable"

The judge's reasoning turned on a narrow but consequential distinction. Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the provision the DOJ invoked in lawsuits against states across the country, requires election officials to preserve and make available certain records that "come into" their possession. Quraishi ruled that language does not cover a state-created computerized voter registration list, which New Jersey built and maintains on its own.

In his ruling, Quraishi wrote:

"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."

He went further, calling the DOJ's position "untenable." Federal election law requires states to "continually" update their voter rolls, adding new registrants, removing the deceased, purging those who have moved. But Title III requires covered records to be preserved without alteration. Forcing both obligations onto the same database, the judge wrote, produces an irreconcilable conflict.

"Simply stated, this creates a conflict."

Quraishi acknowledged the ruling's place in a now-unbroken wall of judicial rejection. He noted that his court "joins at least sixteen other district courts including a sister court, and one circuit, in dismissing Plaintiff's claim." The dismissal was with prejudice, Newsmax reported, meaning the DOJ cannot refile the case under the same legal theory.

New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport framed the outcome as a decisive rebuke. "Every court to consider the question, now totaling 17 district courts and a federal court of appeals, have unanimously rejected this clear federal overreach," Davenport said.

6,600 noncitizens on the rolls, and the state still won't share names

The timing of the ruling is what stings. Gov. Sherrill's own disclosure, that a Motor Vehicle Commission software glitch dumped thousands of noncitizens onto the voter rolls over a full year, arrived just days before Quraishi tossed the case. Roughly 400 of those improperly registered individuals went on to vote.

The DOJ opened a separate review into the 6,600 registrations and demanded identifying information about the affected individuals, including those who cast ballots. Sherrill rejected that demand on Tuesday, calling it unsupported by law.

So the federal government now faces a state that admits noncitizens voted, refuses to hand over their names, and just won a court ruling shielding its voter database from federal review. The judge ruled that the registration error had "no bearing" on the legal question before him, whether the DOJ could compel access to the database under Title III. That may be legally correct. It does not make the result any less frustrating for anyone who thinks the federal government has a legitimate interest in knowing which noncitizens voted in American elections.

The broader pattern of Biden-appointed judges dismissing DOJ lawsuits in New Jersey adds to conservative frustration with the judiciary's handling of the administration's enforcement agenda.

DOJ has sued at least 30 states, and lost everywhere it has gone to trial

The New Jersey case is part of a sweeping DOJ campaign. The department has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking detailed voter data, including dates of birth, addresses, driver's license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers. A DOJ attorney revealed in a separate proceeding that the voter data was intended to be shared with the Department of Homeland Security to check citizenship status through the federal SAVE database, Breitbart reported.

Not a single court has sided with the DOJ. Federal judges in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maine, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Rhode Island have all dismissed similar lawsuits. In Maine, Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker wrote that "under our Constitution, states are the primary regulators and administrators of elections for federal office, unless Congress passes legislation that preempts that framework." Judges in both Maine and Wisconsin dismissed the DOJ's claims on similar grounds.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, framed the issue differently when the New Jersey suit was filed in February. She argued that state election officials were choosing to fight the federal government "rather than show their work." That argument has not yet persuaded a single federal judge.

The administration's broader clashes with the federal judiciary extend well beyond voter rolls. Courts have also blocked executive action on mail-in voting rules, and the administration has taken at least one of those fights to the Supreme Court as the 2026 midterms approach.

Marc Elias celebrates while the DOJ prepares to appeal

Marc Elias, the Democratic attorney whose firm represented defendant-intervenors in the New Jersey case, wasted no time. Elias, a former lawyer for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, posted a one-line reaction:

"I'm still not tired of winning."

A DOJ spokesperson told the Washington Examiner: "We disagree with the court's decision and will appeal." The appeal will test whether a federal circuit court, one level above the district courts that have unanimously ruled against the DOJ, sees the statute differently. One circuit court has already weighed in and sided with the states.

The DOJ first requested New Jersey's full voter list last July. New Jersey provided a version of its rolls but withheld sensitive personal information, citing privacy concerns. Months of negotiations followed before the DOJ filed suit in February under Title III. The state moved to dismiss, and Quraishi granted that motion without even hearing oral argument.

The administration has faced repeated judicial setbacks across multiple policy fronts, and the voter-roll campaign now stands as one of the most uniformly unsuccessful legal efforts in recent memory.

Meanwhile, the separate question of the 6,600 noncitizen registrations remains unresolved. The DOJ wants the names. The governor says no. And the court just ruled it cannot force the issue, at least not under this law.

The fight over election integrity and federal authority will almost certainly continue climbing through the courts. But for now, a state that admitted noncitizens voted in its elections just successfully blocked the federal government from finding out who they were, and a federal judge said that was the law.

When a state confesses the problem and still refuses the remedy, the law may be on its side. Common sense is not.