6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote in N.J. because of a ‘software error,’ governor says - NBC News

Roughly 6,600 noncitizens were unwittingly registered to vote in New Jersey from 2023 to 2024, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Tuesday. Roughly 400 of them improperly cast votes, she said. “They were registered as Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state,” said Sherrill, a Democrat. She added that it is unclear which elections they voted in and said there was “no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed” as a result. Sherrill said that the names are being removed from the voter rolls and that the noncitizens had been registered through no fault of their own because of “a serious software error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System” from June 2023 to June 2024. “These individuals answered ‘no’ when asked on a keypad whether they were a U.S. citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway,” Sherrill said. While the number of noncitizens who voted in New Jersey is a tiny percentage of the state’s overall electorate, the finding could add fuel to President Donald Trump’s claims that they are voting in large numbers in U.S. elections. He used a primetime speech from the White House last week to push Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose new photo ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements to vote. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement that the New Jersey incident “underscores the absolute necessity of the SAVE America Act.” “Democrats and their media allies have repeatedly said it is impossible for noncitizens to register to vote, let alone cast a ballot. Time and again, they have been proven wrong,” Jackson said. Sherrill said in a statement that “Donald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity.” While his administration “tries to weaponize elections for political gain,” she said, “I am ensuring we protect our elections.” Later on Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a letter posted to X that the Justice Department is investigating the incident. It’s asking for the full names, dates of birth, nationalities, addresses, and registration dates of all 6,600 noncitizens, and for the 400 people who Sherrill says voted in past elections, including when and where they voted. “Ensuring that U.S. citizens’ votes are not illegally diluted by noncitizens’ votes is of paramount importance,” Dhillon wrote in her letter to Sherrill. Experts say that this type of error does occur rarely, affecting thousands in a country with nearly 300 million registrants. Still, the scale of the mistake in New Jersey goes beyond recent examples in other states. In 2024, Oregon officials announced they had uncovered an administrative error that put more than 1,200 noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. And in 2018, California officials said they may have registered 1,500 noncitizens accidentally. The number of mistaken registrants who cast ballots is typically quite small: In Oregon, officials said, nine people who had been mistakenly registered appeared to have cast a ballot. Sherrill, who took office in January, said the mistake in New Jersey happened during former Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s tenure. She said it was “unacceptable that no one in the prior administration brought this to light, demanded accountability or took action when it happened years ago.” Murphy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sherrill said she found out about the issue Wednesday — two days before Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin alleged in a letter that 35,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in the state. The Department of Homeland Security gave the state two weeks to respond and confirm its “intentions to collaborate with DHS in order to ensure free, fair, and honest elections.” Sherrill said the state has asked for evidence of Mullin’s claim and “heard nothing back.” She added she does not intend to turn personally identifying information over to the federal government because the Trump administration “continues to weaponize it against people.” Mullin responded to a social media post in which Sherrill divulged the error, saying, “Appreciate you responding back to our letter.” “Looking forward to working with you to secure your elections in the future,” he said on X. Sherrill indicated in her statement that her office would deal with the issue itself. “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. That’s what accountability and good governance look like, and that’s exactly what my administration is doing,” she said. She said her office has launched its own investigation and “will be holding people accountable.” They do not include those who were registered mistakenly. Sherrill said that she has concerns that their immigration status could be affected as a result of the mistake and that it would be “the utmost in hypocrisy for the state to charge them when it’s our fault.” She also said officials are replacing the vendor responsible for the error, Idemia, “to make sure nothing like this happens again.” In a statement Tuesday night, Idemia said its role “is to transmit information through the motor vehicle system.” “The voter registration information is transmitted to the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, which is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility to vote,” the statement said, adding that the information Idemia submits “must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections.”