Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley told Newsmax on Friday that his organization is suing New Jersey to ensure that the Garden State is "going to be transparent" when it comes to its voter rolls heading into the November governor's race.
"It's very important that you have the states maintain their voter rolls," Whatley said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "Actually, it's a federal law that they have to clean their voter rolls every single year. So, we simply sent a letter out to every single state, including New Jersey, and said, 'Hey, it's federal law that you got to do this. When's the last time you did it and what are you going to do to secure those rolls for this year?'
"New Jersey did not respond," he said. "We sent them a follow-up letter. They did not respond. We sent them a follow-up letter. They did not respond. So, yesterday we filed a lawsuit and we're going to go to federal court and we're going to say, 'Hey, you have to abide by this. You've got to clean up your voter rolls.' We also sent a letter to the Department of Justice and said, 'Hey, they are not following federal law. We think that you should take a look at this.'"
The RNC filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the New Jersey Division of Elections, asking a judge to order the state to hand over its records on voter roll maintenance. The legal action reportedly came after New Jersey denied the RNC's request for publicly available documents related to voting machine seal audit logs on Tuesday.
Ensuring that New Jersey's voter rolls are accurate is especially important this year, Whatley said, because of the race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli for the governor's mansion. An internal GOP poll conducted in June shows Sherrill leading Ciattarelli by 5 points, with 11% of voters still undecided.
"We need to know in New Jersey – we're going into a very important governor's race, Republicans have a great opportunity for a pickup there – that we can trust the electoral system, and that New Jersey is going to be transparent," Whatley added.
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.