New Jersey discovered that a software glitch had registered roughly 6,600 self-identified noncitizens to vote, prompting Gov. Mikie Sherrill to order their immediate removal from the rolls.
The error unfolded between June 2023 and June 2024, affecting people who applied for driver's licenses and ID cards. Despite answering "no" when asked via keypad whether they were U.S. citizens, the Motor Vehicle Commission system registered them anyway. Fewer than 400 of those erroneously registered individuals actually cast ballots.
Sherrill, a Democrat who took office after the error occurred under her predecessor Phil Murphy, acknowledged the problem publicly and emphasized that no evidence suggests any election outcomes were altered. She called the incident "reckless" and vowed accountability, though she stressed the failure predated her administration.
The governor's office launched an investigation into how the glitch happened and ordered the MVC to replace IDEMIA, the vendor that ran the system. The Motor Vehicle Commission is transitioning to a new vendor, with a replacement system expected to roll out next year, according to MVC Chair Rosalie Johnson.
The discovery immediately became fodder for election integrity debates. Republicans seized on the error as validation for stricter voting requirements, with the White House invoking it to promote the SAVE America Act, which would mandate proof of citizenship to vote. "There is nothing more important than the integrity of our elections," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Axios. "This latest incident underscores the absolute necessity of the SAVE America Act."
Sherrill pushed back hard against such framings, directly challenging former President Trump's credibility on election security. "When we find a problem, we don't hide it, deny it, or invent conspiracies," she said. "We investigate it, we fix it, and we tell the public."
Those who voted from the erroneously registered pool were spread across Democratic, Republican, and unaffiliated registrations.
Author James Rodriguez: "A real error exposed and corrected, but the political ammunition it supplies to both sides shows how charged election administration has become in America."
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