Trump's Justice Department Is Intervening Directly in the Midterms, Reuters Reports — and New Jersey Is One of Five States That Got a Noncitizen-Voter Letter
Reuters' Election Eve investigation documents a department breaking with decades of practice: lawsuits in California and Alaska that courts have now rejected, and letters to five states — California, Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Nevada — saying noncitizens were identified on their voter rolls.
President Donald Trump's Justice Department has shown a willingness to intervene directly in Tuesday's midterm elections, breaking with decades of practice meant to avoid the appearance that its law enforcement powers are being used to benefit a political party or candidate, Reuters reports in an Election Eve investigation read in full by this desk. In California, the department sought to set aside mail-in ballots from about 20,000 voters it alleges are likely non-US citizens ineligible to vote, and demanded records in a related criminal probe. In Alaska, it intensified a criminal investigation into whether a Senate candidate sharing incumbent Dan Sullivan's name entered the race to confuse voters, and sued to block certification if Sullivan narrowly loses — a lawsuit US District Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage dismissed on Sunday, finding Alaska could not conduct such a probe while preserving the secrecy of ballots. Courts have now rejected the department's lawsuits against both states; the department has appealed the Alaska decision.
New Jersey is inside this story by name, not by analogy. The Trump administration has acknowledged sending letters to election officials in five states — California, Washington, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Nevada — as of October 30, saying it identified noncitizens on their voter rolls, according to a Justice Department document seen by Reuters and reported in its companion explainer, also read in full this run. State officials rebuffed requests to set aside ballots of people on the lists, which have not been made public. The legal record so far runs against the department: on October 28 a federal judge in California rejected its bid to block ballots from the 20,000 voters it identified there, and a federal appeals court upheld that ruling on October 30, citing a material risk of disenfranchising eligible voters. A Reuters investigation in July, cited in the explainer, found just 129 cases in which noncitizens were federally charged with voting illegally since Congress created the federal voting-by-aliens statute in 1996 — many apparently stemming from confusion or administrative errors rather than intentional fraud.
What has changed institutionally, Reuters reports, is the department's own restraint system. Historically its Public Integrity Section, staffed with career election-law experts, often advised agents and prosecutors to wait until results were certified before intervening; the Trump administration has cut the unit's size and suspended the requirement that federal prosecutors consult it on election-corruption probes, and unresolved disputes are now decided by political appointees, according to people familiar with the conversations who spoke to Reuters. Attorney General Todd Blanche says the department's efforts are lawful and aim to protect the integrity of the vote, and its spokesperson says the department is enforcing the law, not helping any campaign. For New Jersey voters, the practical meaning on Election Eve is narrow and concrete: the state's rolls were among those the department wrote to, no New Jersey ballot has been ordered set aside in any ruling Reuters reports, and the lists themselves could still be used to challenge close results after Tuesday — which is why the state's county-level counting and certification will be watched as closely as its turnout.
