New Jersey finds 6,600 noncitizens registered to vote and hundreds voting

New Jersey registered roughly 6,600 noncitizens to vote before the 2024 election, and as many as 400 cast ballots, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said in a statement Tuesday.

The governor blamed a software error in the state’s motor vehicle system for signing up the noncitizens to vote. She said she learned about the error last week and immediately ordered an investigation into what occurred and the removal of the noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls.

“Our preliminary analysis shows fewer than 400 individuals who were newly registered for the first time because of the error voted,” Ms. Sherrill said. “They were registered as Democrats, Republicans and Unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state.”

The 6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024, ahead of the presidential election.

“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,” Ms. Sherrill said.

At the time, Ms. Sherrill was serving in Congress, and Democrat Phil Murphy was governor of New Jersey.

Ms. Sherrill said she appointed a new Motor Vehicle Commission administrator who has begun the process of replacing the vendor responsible for administering the registration system and will “make sure those responsible are held accountable.”

“I want to underscore how seriously I take this matter,” she said. “As a military veteran who swore an oath to defend our Constitution, and as a former federal prosecutor, I believe the integrity of our elections is fundamental to our democracy. 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.”

President Trump announced in a primetime speech last week that the Homeland Security Department identified at least 278,000 names of noncitizens on states’ voter rolls but expected the number was much higher due to lack of cooperation from several blue states.

The department has regularly conducted such analysis, but the new figure included data from four states that had not previously cooperated, including New Jersey.

Ms. Sherrill said she is going public about the problem and the planned fix in the interest of “accountability and good governance.” She also accused the Trump administration of trying to “weaponize elections for political gain.”

“New Jerseyans should have confidence that every eligible citizen can vote, every lawful vote will be counted, and every reasonable step will be taken to protect the integrity of our elections,” she said. “That’s my responsibility, and it’s one I will never stop fighting to uphold.”