‘Working Very Hard to Protect Them’
The Trump administration has been salivating for something — anything! — that could help feed President Trump’s belief in the myth that noncitizens are illegally voting en masse for Democrats. The unfortunate situation in New Jersey this week, involving a software error at the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission during Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, sadly gives them at least one datapoint rooted in reality to point to to justify Trump’s singular fixation with the otherwise widespread conspiracy theory. And perhaps also offers a new rationale for his attempts to try to jam a voter suppression/documentary proof of citizenship bill through Congress to throw the midterms — and hope of Dems taking back power — into chaos.
His Justice Department was never not going to seize on the moment, especially as the DOJ faces loss after loss after loss in its crusade to try to force states to give their voter rolls to the federal government, supposedly for the purpose of purging noncitizens from the rolls, something that states already do themselves and an occurrence that is vanishingly rare, even in light of the news from New Jersey this week.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) announced Tuesday that her administration had found that a software glitch at the MVC had allowed 6,600 noncitizens to be added to the New Jersey voter rolls. About 400 of them have voted in at least one election since 2023. Sherrill said the people had disclosed they were noncitizens while trying to get a license or ID and were mistakenly registered to vote. The people were removed from the voter rolls, likely had no impact on overall election results in the state, and the state is cutting ties with the software company behind the error. Sherrill placed blame for the issue on her predecessor and said her administration was “working very hard to protect” the people who were placed on the rolls through no fault of their own.
Nonetheless, and of course, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, and Trump’s former personal lawyer, Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter to Sherrill on Tuesday demanding that she hand over the identities of the 6,600 noncitizens who were placed on the voter rolls within five business days. She requested the names, nationalities and residential addresses for each of them, Politico reported.
Dhillon reportedly said that she was interested in the information as part of a DOJ investigation into whether New Jersey was following federal law, but she has since hinted publicly that the DOJ might want to make a big show of deporting or bringing criminal charges against the noncitizens on the rolls.
“The consequences of voting when you’re not allowed to in a federal election can mean removal to your home country and worse — it’s a crime,” Dhillon said during a conversation with far-right influencer Benny Johnson Wednesday. “And you know people need to just stop cold in their tracks and not enable it. And shame on New Jersey for its sloppy and incompetent handling of this issue, or worse.”
Additionally, the DOJ is trying to use the incident to bolster its genuinely unbelievably disastrous campaign to seize voter records from states ahead of the midterms. The DOJ has lost every single case that has made its way through court thus far after suing 44 states and Washington, D.C. to try to obtain these records. In fact, in dismissing the lawsuits, every judge has shot down the DOJ’s legal theory, as TPM has reported. Per Politico:
Separately, the DOJ is also using the disclosure of noncitizen voters to bolster its case in court to obtain New Jersey’s unredacted voter registration files. The Trump administration is suing New Jersey, seeking access to the state’s full voter file which includes nonpublic information like the drivers license ID numbers and partial Social Security numbers of New Jersey voters.
Seems Like Thune’s the One Whose ‘Patience Is Running Out’
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) got testy when presented with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s recent remarks — that President Trump’s “patience is running out” with Senate Republicans, who both don’t have the votes to pass the SAVE Act or the interest in nuking the filibuster in order to jam through Trump’s voter suppression bill ahead of the midterms.
“Maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes. Right? It’s 50 around here,” Thune said, when reporters asked him about Leavitt’s remarks.
“Instead of pointing the finger at Republicans, they might think about going after the people who are stopping it on the floor, which is the Democrats,” he continued. “And if there are Republicans they think are gettable, get on the phone.”
Obviously, Thune is one of the few roadblocks standing in the way of Trump having his delusions fulfilled by fall, but it’s not just Thune and Senate GOP leadership’s disinterest in changing filibuster rules for the sake of disenfranchisement. There are several other Senate Republicans who are not on board with the legislation, one of whom has been very vocal about the fact that it would be impossible to implement Trump’s documentary proof of citizenship and voter ID laws just months out from a major federal election.
Even Fox News Poll Finds Trump’s Approval Rating Won’t Stop Tanking
New stats from a new Fox News poll conducted between July 17-20:
Several findings in the latest Fox News Poll show voters are unhappy and want major change, which bodes well for Democrats in November: President Donald Trump’s job approval remains near a record low, more Democrats are motivated to vote, Republicans join Democrats and independents in rating the economy negatively, and 4 in 10 voters want “dramatic” or “revolutionary” change. Plus, more view the GOP as tied to elites than the Democratic Party.
More From TPM Today
Kate Riga covers the latest fallout from Callais: A panel of judges blocked Black Tennesseans’ attempt to challenge Republicans’ racial gerrymander in Tennessee where, after the Supreme Court ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act, state Republicans moved to carve up the state’s one Democratic district: Tennessee Gerrymandering Challenge Fails, Just as Supreme Court Intended
In this week’s edition of The Franchise, Khaya Himmelman digs in on election denier wins in Arizona’s Republican primaries this week and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin escalating the admin’s threats against state election officials: Election Deniers’ Grip on the Republican Party Strengthens in Arizona
“A new and ironic development in the first-of-its-kind legal challenge to President Trump’s U.S. attorney scheme gives me a chance to pull back the lens a bit to show the full scope of the corruption involved and why it matters,” David Kurtz writes in today’s Morning Memo: What’s Really Behind Trump’s Corrupt US Attorney Scheme
Yesterday’s Top Story
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Obviously common sense and critical thinking is lacking big time in this current maladministration. It was a computer glitch. No one rigged the voter rolls. And all this is clutching at straws is tedious.
6,200 non-citizens did not vote.
400 non-citizens voted.
And they specified that they were non-citizens when they registered for ID. At this time, it does not sound like a case for federal investigation.
It’s like they think if they keep hammering our faces with a 2x4 we stop speaking out.
I just want to be around long enough for them all to get the comeuppance they deserve.
“We CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump [raged]), undercutting Collins’s effort to project deep concern about the killing.
Save us from Susan Collins’ concerns.
Well the GOP/ media worked hard to get rid of Graham Platner to save her but what about Cory Mills or Max Miller, both of whom are worse, where the media on these two.
Facts Only
Governor Mikie Sherrill (D) announced a software glitch at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC).
The glitch added 6,600 noncitizens to the state's voter rolls.
Approximately 400 of these individuals voted in at least one election since 2023.
The affected individuals are removed from the voter rolls.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon requested the names, nationalities, and addresses of the 6,600 noncitizens within five business days.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued 44 states and Washington, D.C., to obtain voter records.
The DOJ is currently suing New Jersey for unredacted voter registration files, including driver's license and partial Social Security numbers.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) stated he does not have the votes to pass the SAVE Act or change filibuster rules.
A Fox News poll conducted July 17-20 indicates 4 in 10 voters want "dramatic" or "revolutionary" change.
The same poll shows President Trump's job approval remains near a record low.
Executive Summary
A software error at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission resulted in 6,600 noncitizens being erroneously added to voter rolls, with roughly 400 having cast ballots since 2023. Governor Mikie Sherrill attributed the error to a previous administration and stated that those registered were doing so while applying for IDs and had disclosed their noncitizen status. The state has since removed these individuals and is terminating its contract with the responsible software provider.
The Department of Justice, led by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, has responded by demanding the personal identities of those registered and utilizing the incident to support ongoing litigation aimed at seizing unredacted voter files from New Jersey and 44 other states. While the administration views this as a matter of federal law enforcement and election integrity, the state and its supporters characterize it as a politically motivated effort to justify voter suppression legislation. Concurrently, internal GOP friction exists in the Senate, where Leader John Thune has pushed back against White House pressure to bypass filibuster rules to pass the SAVE Act.
Full Take
The strongest version of this narrative is that a verifiable failure in state registration software created a loophole allowing noncitizens to vote, justifying federal intervention to ensure the integrity of future elections and hold violators accountable.
The analysis employs a highly adversarial frame, utilizing emotionally charged language ("salivating," "crusade," "delusions") to cast the DOJ's legal actions not as a pursuit of law, but as a predatory search for "datapoints" to support a conspiracy theory. This creates a narrative of "administrative malice" versus "clerical error."
Patterns detected: ARC-0023 Emotional Exploitation
The root cause of this friction is the conflict between two divergent paradigms of election security: one that views voter rolls as a state-managed administrative process subject to human/technical error, and another that views any such error as systemic vulnerability requiring centralized federal oversight. The unstated assumption here is that the DOJ's interest in the 400 actual voters is a pretext for a wider campaign of disenfranchisement.
The implications center on the tension between privacy and security. If federal authorities successfully seize unredacted files (including SSNs), it establishes a precedent for federal surveillance of state voting populations. Conversely, if software errors persist, public trust in election outcomes continues to erode.
Bridge Questions:
1. What objective threshold of "erroneous registration" would trigger a legitimate federal investigation versus a political one?
2. How would the legal outcome change if the 6,600 individuals had not disclosed their noncitizen status during the ID process?
Counterstrike Scan: A coordinated influence campaign would use a single outlier event (the NJ glitch) to claim the entire system is compromised, fueling a "crisis" narrative to justify emergency policy shifts. While the content here focuses on that event, it does so to critique the *reaction* to the event rather than to promote the "crisis" itself. The content is structurally distinct from a disinformation playbook.
Sentinel — Human
This text functions primarily as partisan political commentary, skillfully weaving together a specific incident with broader critiques of the Trump administration and voter suppression tactics, marked by an intense, opinionated voice.