NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) — New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill said about 6,600 people who identified themselves as noncitizens were registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 due to a software error in the state’s motor vehicle system.
The applicants answered “no” when asked on a keypad whether they were US citizens while applying for driver’s licenses and identification cards, Sherrill said in a statement posted on social media.
“Through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway,” the governor said, adding that the error predated her administration by nearly three years.
A preliminary analysis found that the people who went on to cast ballots were registered as Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters, and were spread across the state, according to the statement. Fewer than 400 of them cast ballots.
Sherrill said she learned of the problem last week and directed her chief counsel to open an investigation. She ordered the removal of residents erroneously added to the voter rolls during the 13-month window. Her newly appointed motor vehicle administrator is replacing the vendor, Idemia, which runs the system, she said. The vendor is Idemia, a biometrics security firm, Sherrill said.
The disclosure comes as the Trump administration presses states over voter roll accuracy and election administration. President Donald Trump made US elections a core focus of a rare address to the nation last week, and he wants GOP lawmakers to back his plan to scrutinize the November midterms.
In the statement, Sherrill said Trump has “zero credibility on the issue of election integrity” and accused him of spending more than a decade undermining confidence in US elections.
“When we find a problem, we don’t hide it, deny it, or invent conspiracies,” Sherrill said. “We investigate it, we fix it, and we tell the public.”
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