New Jersey reveals 6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote through software error

New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced July 21 that a Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) software error improperly registered approximately 6,600 people who had identified themselves as noncitizens to vote.

The error occurred between June 2023 and June 2024, before Sherrill took office. While applying for driver’s licenses or state identification cards, the affected residents answered “no” when asked electronically whether they were U.S. citizens, but the system registered them anyway, according to the New Jersey Globe.

Sherrill said the registrations occurred through no fault of the applicants.

A preliminary review found that hundreds (though fewer than 400) may have subsequently cast ballots. They were registered as Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters and were distributed across the state.

“We have no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed,” Sherrill said, according to the New York Post.

The state has not publicly identified which elections those people participated in.

Sherrill said she learned of the error last week and immediately directed her chief counsel to investigate. Her administration has retained CSG Law to conduct an independent review, ordered the erroneous registrations removed, and begun notifying affected residents.

The governor also said her newly appointed MVC administrator is replacing the vendor responsible for the system. The New Jersey Globe identified the vendor as IDEMIA, a multinational identification-services company that also provides technology for TSA PreCheck and other government programs.

“I am appalled by the reckless failures that allowed this to happen and the lack of transparency shown by those in charge at the time,” Sherrill said. “This failure didn’t occur under my watch, but accountability starts now.”

The error occurred while fellow Democrat Phil Murphy was governor.

President Donald Trump has long warned of noncitizens being registered to vote, including particularly in New Jersey. He claimed during a July 16 address that as many as 35,152 noncitizens were registered in New Jersey and approximately 250,000 were registered across New Jersey, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Sherrill confirmed that her administration had received a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) letter citing the 35,152 figure. She said the state requested the evidence and identities behind the estimate but had not received a response.

The governor nevertheless attacked Trump during her announcement, accusing him of attempting to “weaponize elections for political gain” and saying he has “zero credibility on the issue of election integrity.”

As Zeale News previously reported, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said July 17 that New Jersey was among four states that had declined to cooperate fully with the department’s examination of voter records.

Mullin announced that states seeking federal election grants would be required to cooperate with federal citizenship-verification efforts. He said 23 cooperating states had identified approximately 23,000 noncitizens and 400,000 deceased people on their voter rolls, although being improperly registered does not necessarily mean a person cast a ballot.

The New Jersey disclosure also comes amid a continuing congressional fight over the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship for federal voter registration and photo identification at the polls.

The House passed the legislation in February, but a subsequent attempt to advance it failed in the Senate after four Republicans joined Democrats in opposition.

Sherrill has not announced when the independent investigation into the MVC failure will be completed.