More than 6,600 non-citizens were allowed to register as voters in New Jersey because of a software glitch in the state’s motor vehicle system, New Jersey’s Democratic governor said in a statement on Tuesday. Fewer than 400 of those people actually voted, the governor said, citing a “preliminary analysis” of the situation.
The governor, Mikie Sherrill, also said she had ordered the people removed from the state’s voter rolls and “replace the vendor responsible for administering the system.”
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“I am appalled by the reckless mistakes that made this possible and by the lack of transparency shown by those in charge at the time,” Sherrill, who succeeded fellow Democrat Phil Murphy, said in the statement. “This error did not occur on my watch, but responsibility begins now. I am taking action to prevent something like this from happening in the future and ensuring those responsible are held accountable.”
Sherrill did not name the seller or how she found out about the matter. An email sent to a spokesperson seeking more information was not immediately returned.
The statement said the error occurred when people were applying for driver’s licenses and ID cards online. After they answered “no” to the question about whether they were citizens, “the system registered them anyway,” Sherrill said. She also pointed out that the people who registered to vote did so “through no fault of their own.”
Sherrill’s announcement did not elaborate on where the voters were located or whether any of them had cast votes that would have mattered in a local election.
According to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, “each state motor vehicle license application (including any renewal application) filed with a state motor vehicle agency must be considered a concurrent voter registration application unless the applicant fails to sign the voter registration application,” according to the Justice Department. The result was an increase in the number of registered voters. Some local officials have recently discovered errors caused by the software used for this process.
In 2019, an audit in California found more than 83,000 “duplicate registration records,” the Los Angeles Times reported. In October, an audit found that the state of Michigan had more voters than residents – a result of inactive voters remaining on the voter rolls, according to Bridge Detroit. In April, officials in Oregon said more than 1,700 people were allowed to register to vote between 2010 and 2023 despite not providing proof of citizenship.
In her statement, Sherrill warned against using the announcement to undermine confidence in American elections. President Donald Trump gave a prime-time address last week in which he reiterated his claim that recent American elections had been rigged by foreign governments, although a top presidential adviser admitted that evening that the administration had found no evidence of this.
As part of Trump’s latest push to cast doubt on the election results, the White House released documents that it said provided evidence of election interference and a cover-up by government officials. The documents show that China and other foreign actors attempted to obtain voter information during Trump’s first term, but there is no evidence of manipulation of the results, according to an independent fact check by FactCheck.org, PBS, NBC, CBS, BBC and others.
“While the Trump administration seeks to exploit elections for political gain,” Sherrill said in her statement, “I am ensuring we protect our elections.”
The people of New Jersey “should have confidence that every eligible citizen can vote, every lawful vote is counted and every appropriate step is taken to protect the integrity of our elections,” Sherrill said. “This is my responsibility and I will never stop fighting for it.”
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