The Republican National Committee alleges state officials violated the Open Public Records Act by delaying or denying their requests for voter registration documents. (Daniella Heminghaus for New Jersey Monitor)
The Republican National Committee is suing New Jersey, alleging state officials violated the Open Public Records Act in denying its requests for voting machine seal audit logs and unduly delayed a response to its request for a trove of voter registration data.
The GOP alleges that officials within the state elections division violated the records law by failing to return documents within the required seven-business-day response period and by declining to release documents created and maintained by county election officials and shared with the state office.
“State officials are slow-walking access to records about voting machines and voter roll maintenance,” Michael Whatley, the committee’s chair, said in a statement. “The RNC is taking legal action because the people of New Jersey have a right to know that their elections are being run fairly, securely, and in full compliance with the law.”
A spokesperson for the New Jersey secretary of state, who oversees state elections, declined to comment on the lawsuit. The state has not yet filed a response to the complaint, which was lodged Thursday in Superior Court in Mercer County.
Though New Jersey law largely requires records custodians to fill records requests within seven business days, custodians rarely meet those timelines. Delays to one of the GOP’s requests stretch long even by normal standards.
The committee’s first request, which sought a raft of documents related to voter registration and voter list maintenance, was submitted on March 25 and received its first tranche of responsive documents on July 11, some 75 business days later.
Donna Barber, the election division’s executive director, in a June 18 email attached to the lawsuit told GOP attorneys that the state’s June 10 primary had delayed its processing of the request.
“I apologize for the delayed response but New Jersey’s June 10, 2025 statewide primary election has required almost all of our time. The Division of Elections is currently reviewing your request,” she said in the email.
Though records custodians are afforded the ability to seek extensions to public record request deadlines, it’s not clear the elections division requested an extension within seven business days of receiving the committee’s request, as the law requires.
Barber’s email did not include a deadline for the extension.
The Republicans’ request for voter registration documents was voluminous, seeking disclosure of four classes of records of communications with federal agencies spanning two years, every record relating to five national databases over that period, and two years of communications between state and local election officials, among a host of other voter registration-related records.
The division provided the GOP with a list of voters removed from the rolls and a list of inactive voters last week, but has returned no other responsive documents.
At least some portions of the GOP’s requests appear deficient under New Jersey’s public records law. Its request for communications about voter roll inaccuracies, for example, does not list specific email addresses or accounts, as required by 2024 amendments to the Open Public Records Act that narrowed the scope of the transparency law.
It’s unclear whether a judge will consider the Republicans’ request for documents spanning two years “reasonable,” another requirement for the release of documents like emails, text messages, and other correspondence.
The Republican committee has said it is seeking records required to be made available under the National Voter Registration Act, which requires officials to make records relating to the maintenance of voter rolls available for public inspection.
Federal courts have ruled, including last year, that the federal law’s disclosure requirements can supersede conflicting state law, though those cases are typically filed in federal rather than state courts.
The division’s denial of a GOP request filed separately on July 3 — for audit logs of seals placed on voting machines outside of polling hours to prevent tampering — doesn’t face the same preemption risks because those documents are not related to the maintenance of voter rolls.
State officials denied that request on multiple grounds. They said they were not required to disclose those documents because they were created and primarily maintained by counties. Under the changes made to the state records law in 2024, agencies are not required to disclose documents they possess that were drafted by a separate public entity.
The division also denied those requests under two exemptions on computer and data security.