RNC threatens new lawsuit over New Jersey voter records after earlier case was tossed

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is threatening to sue New Jersey election officials over records tied to the state’s recent noncitizen voter registration incident, just weeks after a federal judge threw out the party’s earlier voter records lawsuit for lack of standing.

The RNC, New Jersey Republican Party, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. and state Sen. Anthony Bucco sent formal notices this week accusing New Jersey’s chief election official and election officials in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties of violating the National Voter Registration Act by failing to turn over requested voter list maintenance records

“Voters deserve answers, and the RNC is putting officials on notice: comply with the law, hand over the records, or face legal action,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said.

The notices give state and county officials 20 days to cure the alleged violations — until Sept. 15 — before the groups may file suit seeking a court order to compel the records.

The fight follows Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s disclosure last month that a Motor Vehicle Commission software failure improperly registered roughly 6,600 people who had told the state they were not U.S. citizens. 

Fewer than 400 affected individuals later voted, according to the state, which has launched an investigation and begun removing erroneous registrations.

The RNC has used that disclosure to broaden its demands for information about how New Jersey identifies and removes potentially ineligible voters. Its July 31 requests sought records dating to January 2023, including voter removal data, inactive-registration records and communications with the MVC, federal immigration agencies, the SAVE database and other election offices.

The new legal notices contend that New Jersey and the counties have either ignored the requests, produced only a fraction of the records or improperly treated them solely as requests under New Jersey’s public-records law.

The responses have varied. 

Bergen County produced several reports, including a spreadsheet identifying 134 people removed from the rolls as noncitizens between 2023 and August 2026, 91 of whose registrations were linked to the MVC. But the RNC says 10 of 13 requested categories remain outstanding.

Hudson County, according to its notice, sent only an automated acknowledgment and had produced nothing after 26 days. Middlesex County had likewise produced no records as of Aug. 26, while Essex and Somerset counties said additional time was needed to process their requests.

The threatened lawsuit would come shortly after the RNC lost a separate New Jersey records case.

In July, U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner dismissed that lawsuit, ruling that the committee had failed to establish standing. The RNC’s stated desire to assess voter roll accuracy and conduct generalized political activity was not concrete enough to support the suit, the court found.

The new notices appear to address that obstacle directly.

They now say the withheld information is interfering with specific election activity: registering voters, planning turnout programs and locating eligible citizens whose registrations have been canceled or placed into inactive status before New Jersey’s Oct. 13 registration deadline.

The requesters “plan to direct their registration drives toward eligible citizens whose registrations were canceled or placed in inactive status since January 2023,” the notices say, arguing that withholding the records “directly impedes” their ability to conduct that work. 

Whether that more detailed theory is enough to establish standing in a new lawsuit would ultimately be for a court to decide.

The notices were sent by Dhillon Law Group and signed by attorney Lee Goodman. 

The firm was founded by Harmeet Dhillon, who formally left it after becoming assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in April 2025. The division has separately pursued an aggressive campaign for New Jersey’s unredacted voter registration data.