(José Niño, Headline USA) Thousands of non-citizens are coming off New Jersey’s voter rolls after an automated system signed them up without authorization, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed Tuesday that roughly 6,600 people who lack citizenship entered the rolls between June 2023 and June 2024 while seeking driver’s licenses and identification cards. Every one of them marked the application to show they were not citizens. The motor vehicle system enrolled them anyway.
A preliminary state review counted fewer than 400 who went on to cast ballots, the Journal reported. Their registrations split among Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters, and they turned up scattered across the state.
Sherrill, sworn in this January, separated her handling from Washington’s. “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,” she said. She learned of the malfunction last week, ordered her chief counsel to investigate, and told officials to delete every registration created in error. The breakdown dates to the tenure of Phil Murphy, a fellow Democrat, whose spokesman offered no comment.
“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. “We have no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed.”
Her vendor disagrees. Idemia supplied the software built to screen non-citizens out, and the firm told the Journal that it merely relays records. Registration data “is transmitted to the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, which is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility to vote. Information submitted by Idemia must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections,” the company said. Idemia went further with the New York Post, insisting the records tracked New Jersey’s own specifications. According to an Axios report, the state has started shopping for a successor to Idemia.
Timing sharpens the story. President Donald Trump wants Congress to impose tighter identification and proof of citizenship standards before November. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin notified state officials last Thursday that an early screen surfaced as many as 35,152 possible noncitizen registrations in New Jersey, part of some 250,000 the department alleges across four states. Those counts describe unconfirmed database matches rather than proven voters. The Justice Department opened a separate inquiry, per NBC News.
New Jersey ranks among 30 states fighting federal demands for unredacted rolls. About a dozen district judges, several of them Trump appointees, have sided with the states, and a split appellate panel did the same in June as CNN reported.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
