Ineligible Voter Purge Planned In NJ, Trump-Appointed Official Says

NEW JERSEY — A new federal task force will be overseeing President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order on elections in New Jersey, with plans to purge ineligible voters from the state’s registration lists, prosecutors say.

Earlier this week, Alina Habba, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, announced the creation of a federal task force that will be charged with implementing the president’s March 25 executive order.

Trump’s order attempts to overhaul elections in the United States, including mandatory proof of citizenship to register and vote in federal elections, among other requirements. Read it here.

The move saw swift criticism from voting rights advocates, who allege it will block tens of millions of people from casting ballots.

In New Jersey, people are required to be a U.S. citizen to register to vote. The state does not require voters to present identification while voting in most cases. However, if a voter does not provide valid identification at the time of registration, they must show their ID at the polling place.

>> Read More: Trump Signs Order Changing Election Rules (What It Means For NJ)

According to Habba, the new team – which has been dubbed the “Election Integrity Task Force – will consist of a team of prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, who will work with law enforcement officers from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies.

Habba said that the task force will be sharing information among its members in an effort to “efficiently and effectively remove individuals who are not eligible to vote from state voter lists.”

Other goals of the task force include:

• “Prioritizing the investigation and prosecution of election crimes, including but not limited to, federal statutes that prohibit voter registration fraud, casting of fraudulent ballots, voting by non-citizens, individuals voting multiple times in same election, and foreign interference caused by foreign nationals contributing or donating funds to United States elections.”
• “Taking appropriate steps to ensure compliance with the voter list maintenance requirements of the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.”

Habba, a White House counselor who was previously a personal lawyer for President Trump, was sworn in as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor in March.

• See Related: U.S. Attorney Launches Investigation Into Top NJ Officials

NEW JERSEY JOINS LAWSUIT

The Constitution gives individual states broad authority to run their elections, which set up a swift court challenge to Trump's presidential order.

On April 3, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin announced that he was joining 18 of his peers from other states to file a lawsuit against the president, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the federal Election Assistance Commission and other Trump administration officials.

Trump doesn’t have the authority to rewrite election laws by decree – it’s a power that is reserved for the states and Congress, the coalition of prosecutors said.

“This unconstitutional executive order is the most egregious attack on voting rights by a president in our recent history,” Platkin said.

“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and we must do everything in our power to safeguard it,” he argued. “This illegal order just does the opposite. The executive order undermines states’ rights to set the laws that govern our elections and is a blatant attack on the constitutional rights of New Jerseyans.”

“Make no mistake: we will fight this unlawful attempt to deny voters their most sacred right,” Platkin added.

ELECTION FRAUD IS RARE, EXPERTS SAY

Trump has often claimed elections are being rigged, even before the results are known, and has waged battles against certain voting methods since he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden. He has focused particularly on mail voting, arguing without evidence that it is insecure and invites fraud.

In New Jersey, a wide range of safeguards are already in place to protect against election fraud, including measures to protect mail-in-ballots and voting in-person. When cases happen, they are rare – and they are prosecuted, advocates say.

“The verdict is in from every corner that voter fraud is sufficiently rare that it simply could not and does not happen at the rate even approaching that which would be required to ‘rig’ an election,” the Brennan Center for Justice says.

“Electoral integrity is key to our democracy, and politicians who genuinely care about protecting our elections should focus not on phantom fraud concerns, but on those abuses that actually threaten election security,” the progressive-leaning nonprofit charges.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, there has been a “long history in this country of racially suppressive voting measures – including poll taxes and all-white primaries – that were put in place under the guise of stopping voter fraud that wasn’t actually occurring in the first place.

Some pundits continue to claim that there is a nationwide risk of election fraud, however.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning think tank that has supported many of the Trump administration’s policies, praised the president’s recent executive order.

“President Trump is finally taking the action long needed to put the resources of federal agencies like the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to work helping states, instead of trying to hinder their efforts to reform our election process, which was an unfortunate hallmark of the Biden administration,” according to the group, which publishes a database of election fraud cases in New Jersey and other states on its website.

According to the New Jersey Attorney General Office, any person who has voting questions, who believes their right to vote has been subject to interference, or who wishes to report other voting-related problems or concerns can call the state’s Voter Information and Assistance line toll-free at 1-877-NJ-VOTER (1-877-658-6837).

Voters can also direct election-related questions to their county superintendent of elections and county board of elections.

Voters who believe that they have been the victim of discrimination can file a report with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights through the NJ BIAS online portal, available at https://bias.njcivilrights.gov, or by calling 1-833-NJDCR4U (1-833-653-2748).

Learn more about voter rights in New Jersey here.

Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com. Learn more about advertising on Patch here. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.