Fewer than 400 mistakenly registered noncitizens cast ballots across the state
Fewer than 400 mistakenly registered noncitizens voted
New Jersey removed about 6,600 non-U.S. citizens from its voter rolls after learning that a software error in the state’s motor vehicle system had mistakenly registered them to vote, state officials said.
The error affected people who applied for driver’s licenses or identification cards from June 2023 to June 2024. Those individuals indicated on their applications to New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System that they were not U.S. citizens, but the system registered them to vote regardless, according to state officials.
The software was provided by a vendor called IDEMIA and was supposed to prevent non-U.S. citizens from becoming registered, the officials said. IDEMIA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat who took office in January, disclosed the error and said she had asked her chief counsel to launch an investigation into the registrations, which occurred during the administration of her predecessor, Gov. Phil Murphy.
“When we find a problem, we don’t hide it, deny it, or invent conspiracies. We investigate it, we fix it, and we tell the public,” Sherrill said.
She said fewer than 400 of the mistakenly registered noncitizens have voted since they were registered. Those voters were scattered across the state and cast ballots as Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters, according to state officials.
“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.
Sherrill said she had ordered the removal from the rolls of any residents erroneously added during the period and that the state has begun the process of replacing the vendor.
The disclosure follows President Donald Trump’s White House address last week in which he said the Department of Homeland Security had concluded that 250,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in New Jersey, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote in a letter to New Jersey officials after the speech that a preliminary review found as many as 35,152 noncitizens could be registered to vote in the state.
Election experts have said the administration has not supported the 250,000 figure with transparent methodology. Voting-rights groups and legal experts say federal databases are themselves inaccurate when merged and searched in bulk.
New Jersey, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania are among 30 states being sued by the federal government in a bid to force them to turn over unredacted voter rolls. More than a dozen district court judges, including several appointed by Trump, have ruled in favor of the states. Some resisting officials have said the demands violate privacy laws and exceed the federal government’s authority.
The error in New Jersey came during a period in which Democrat Kamala Harris defeated Trump in the state by more than 250,000 votes out of 4.27 million votes cast in the 2024 presidential election. Trump has falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen, and his administration has pushed to pass strict new voter-identification and proof-of-citizenship rules in Congress ahead of midterm elections this fall.