DOJ On Schedule To Clean Up Voter Registration Rolls In Blue States
President Donald J. Trump’s Justice Department is escalating its crackdown on states that have allowed their voter rolls to deteriorate — a failure federal prosecutors now believe may be deliberate in several Democrat-controlled jurisdictions. According to a senior DOJ official speaking with Just the News, investigators reviewing state records have uncovered widespread instances of deceased individuals, non-citizens, and duplicate registrations lingering on voter lists, raising fresh concerns about systemic negligence — or intentional manipulation.
The renewed pressure campaign comes as part of the administration’s broad effort to restore integrity to federal voting-list maintenance laws, the outlet reported.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet J. Dhillon was unequivocal when addressing the issue on Just the News’ streaming program.
“The sloppiness of the elections in blue states is no accident. It is on purpose. It is a feature, not a bug,” Dhillon said.
She warned that bloated rolls make it easier for political operatives to exploit the disengaged. “And the goal is to cram as many people on there and make voters who are not particularly engaged, make it easy for someone else to help them fill out their ballot and return it for them when they didn’t care enough to do it themselves,” she added.
Dhillon reaffirmed that federal law requires states to police their own voter lists — and President Trump’s Justice Department intends to ensure exactly that. “What we can do at the federal government level is ensure that our federal election laws are observed, and that includes each state’s requirement to keep clean voter rolls,” she said. “That is a fundamental basic.”
Her comments followed the department’s newly filed lawsuits against six Democrat-led states — Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Washington state, and Vermont — seeking court orders compelling them to turn over their voter-registration records. The DOJ plans to audit these rolls for outdated entries, duplicates, and other violations of federal list-maintenance rules.
The enforcement push is already delivering results. Just last week, Dhillon secured an agreement with North Carolina requiring officials to review and correct more than 100,000 registrations that failed to meet state legal standards.
Altogether, Dhillon said her office is on track to require at least 26 states to reform and clean up their rolls through lawsuits, settlements, or voluntary cooperation.
“We’re now in litigation with 14 states. So the six yesterday included Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Washington State and Vermont. That adds to eight we already had going,” she noted.
“We are close to reaching resolution, voluntary cooperation with another dozen states, and I won’t say which those are, but I think we will definitely let the public know when that happens,” she added. “We have voluntary cooperation from four states, and we reached a settlement in a consent decree with the state of North Carolina.”
The DOJ’s sweeping review spans all 50 states. Dhillon said several jurisdictions — including deeply blue California — are especially reckless in maintaining voter records.
“There are definitely people on the voter rolls of every state who don’t belong there,” she said. “They’re dead. They’ve moved. They’re registered multiple times there. There have been reported instances of people, because of these insecure, double or extraneous registrations, going to the polls and having their vote recorded before they got there.
“Then there are clearly people on the voter rolls, including immigrants who are not citizens, and that can include legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, who are on the voter rolls,” she added.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats, already facing a grim outlook heading into the midterms. In a sign of financial and organizational strain, the Democratic National Committee recently took out a massive $15 million loan ahead of the upcoming election cycle — a move Politico revealed in a recent Federal Election Commission filing.
“The national party committee framed the line of credit as an early investment to boost its candidates in New Jersey and Virginia earlier this month, and help build up state parties ahead of next year’s midterms. But the need for a loan still puts the DNC in sharp contrast with its GOP counterpart, the Republican National Committee, which was sitting on $86 million at the end of September,” the outlet reported.
With President Trump prioritizing election integrity and the Justice Department aggressively enforcing federal law, Democrats now face mounting scrutiny — and diminishing resources — heading into 2025.