A growing number of states facing noncitizen and illegal voting allegations and disputes over voter registration policies is intensifying a national fight over election safeguards ahead of the midterms.
The disputes exposed a broader fight over how states verify citizenship when registering voters — maximum access versus maximum verification — and how far the federal government can go in demanding state voter data when suspecting illegal activity. The issue recently exploded after New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote through Trenton’s Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC).
"This isn't just a New Jersey problem. This is a national problem," Texas Public Policy Foundation chief national initiatives officer Chuck DeVore told Fox News Digital in an interview. DeVore wrote after Sherrill’s disclosure about the problems that can arise if noncitizen and illegal voting continue relatively unchecked.
"Historically, inappropriately pumping up the vote has been a path to gaining power," DeVore said, adding that a plurality of Americans "are concerned" about noncitizen voting.
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President Bill Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act in 1993. Commonly called the "Motor Voter Law" the law requires covered states to offer voter registration through motor vehicle agencies while administering their own voter rolls, DeVore said.
"The intention … was to make it really easy to register to vote, especially when you touched a very common part of government," DeVore said, "which was the Department of Motor Vehicles or whatever the equivalent is."
DeVore argued that architects of the voter registration system failed to account for the narrower mission of motor vehicle agencies, which he said historically focused on two things: "You who you say you are — and can you safely operate [automotive] machinery."
Neither function has anything to do with election security, DeVore said.
"And then if you add an additional layer on top of it, which is If the people in charge want as many people registered as possible because it creates the raw material for election fraud, well, now you have a whole other set of problems that kind of supercharges the weakness."
That broader fight has increasingly pitted the Justice Department against states including New Jersey and Pennsylvania over federal demands for voter registration data.
Both states’ election agencies — led by a Democrat and a Republican, respectively — resisted the demands, raising privacy and legal objections to releasing unredacted sensitive information.
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The DOJ, meanwhile, has adopted a "broken-windows theory" approach to investigating potential election violations.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said the agency is applying the crimefighting theory popularized during former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration, which focused on enforcing lower-level offenses in an effort to deter more serious crimes.
Under Dhillon and Attorney General Todd Blanche, the DOJ has prioritized pursuing provable fraud and irregularities in state election processes.
"We need to go after every single one of these violations … I can't talk about a lot of what we're doing publicly, but activists and others are giving us leads," Dhillon recently told Fox News Digital. "And we are carefully running down each."
The push has brought the federal government into conflict with states, with critics citing Tenth Amendment concerns over the balance between federal authority and states’ role in administering elections.
Congress has previously used federal funding to pressure states to change policies traditionally administered at the state level. In the 1980s, federal law conditioned a portion of highway funding on states adopting a minimum drinking age of 21.
The Justice Department has similarly sued or threatened to sue states including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York over voter data and election-record disputes.
Democrats in states facing increased federal scrutiny have pushed back against allegations of intentional wrongdoing.
New Jersey Senate President Nicholas Scutari, D-Scotch Plains, recently told Fox News Digital he agrees that a "healthy democracy" depends on voter-roll security and proper "stewardship" of those trusted to execute "free, fair and accessible elections."
"It also depends on public trust, and Governor Sherrill deserves credit for being transparent about these failures, taking swift action to launch an independent investigation of what went wrong, and pledging to hold anyone responsible to account," Scutari said.
At the same time, Scutari’s critics have accused Democrats in New Jersey of failing to prevent voter-roll problems despite repeated warnings about vulnerabilities in the system.
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"People were on the honor system," said New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Kristin Corrado, R-Totowa.
"The fact is that the people in charge for so long said this absolutely was impossible; Republicans were ‘conspiracy theorists’," added Sen. Declan O’Scanlon of Little Silver, the top Republican on the State Joint Budget Committee.
Other states, including Pennsylvania, have also resisted federal demands for voter data, citing privacy concerns. DeVore said that while serving as a California state lawmaker, he regularly had access to similar voter information.
"Many Democrats see elections as mere census exercises. All they are is a body count. They're not, in fact, informed citizens casting a ballot with their enlightened self-interest guiding their ballot."
Pennsylvania officials similarly resisted the Trump administration’s demand for the state’s voter rolls, even after DOJ sued Harrisburg’s elections chief in September.
"This request and reported efforts to collect broad data on millions of Americans represent a concerning attempt to expand the federal government’s role in our country’s electoral process," Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt — a Philadelphia Republican appointed by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — wrote in his reply.
"I take seriously the obligations under both federal and Pennsylvania law to ensure that only eligible voters have access to the ballot box and to see to it that Pennsylvania’s voter rolls are appropriately maintained and updated," Schmidt wrote in a more recent letter to the Justice Department in July.
The SAVE America Act — which would require voter registrants to provide proof of citizenship and voters to show ID — remains stalled in the Senate after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., sent the chamber into summer recess, angering President Donald Trump and election-security advocates.
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DeVore warned, however, that Congress has previously pursued sweeping federal voting legislation and argued that states should take the lead on election safeguards.
He pointed to Democrats’ previous effort to pass the "For the People Act," legislation sponsored by former Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., which would have restricted some state voter-ID requirements.
"So we need to be somewhat circumspect about using the sledgehammer of federal law to sweep away state powers to order their own affairs," DeVore said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Sherrill for additional comment.