New Jersey begins purging improper voter registrations

Move follows last week’s disclosure that about 6,600 noncitizens were mistakenly registered to vote because of MVC software error

New Jersey has begun removing more than 4,500 voter registrations that state officials say resulted solely from a Motor Vehicle Commission software error and is referring roughly 2,100 others to county election officials for review, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Tuesday.

Sherrill made the announcement Tuesday morning during a celebration at Union Baptist Church in Trenton of the John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act, a voting rights law she signed earlier this month.

Her update came a week after she disclosed that about 6,600 noncitizens were mistakenly registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 because of the software error. Roughly 400 later cast ballots, though Sherrill has said no election outcomes were affected.

State officials also have mailed letters to affected individuals and launched an informational website as officials work to correct the voter rolls.

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The registrations occurred during former Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration, though the attorney general’s office told Sherrill of the problem only two weeks ago.

“Over the last seven days, we’ve moved aggressively on multiple fronts, reaching out directly to those affected and beginning the process of correcting the voter rolls,” Sherrill said in a statement. “As I said last week, this is what accountable government looks like. We inherited a problem. We didn’t hide it. We didn’t deny it. We’re investigating it. And we’re going to fix it the right way.”

The Division of Elections has begun removing more than 4,500 registrations that the state says resulted solely from the software error. The remaining registrations will be referred to county election officials because the state’s initial review indicates some of those individuals may be eligible voters and should not be improperly removed from the rolls.

“That has been the case in other states where clerical and administrative voter registration errors have occurred, and we’re determined to get this right,” Sherrill said. “Just as we have an obligation to remove everyone who is not eligible to vote, we also have a responsibility to protect the voting rights of eligible New Jersey citizens and ensure no one is improperly removed from the rolls. We are going to do just that.”

Sherrill has said the noncitizens did not intentionally register to vote. They were applying for driver’s licenses and identification cards when the system asked via an electronic keypad whether they were American citizens.

“These individuals answered ‘no’ when asked,” Sherrill said last week. “But through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway.”

IDEMIA, the longtime Motor Vehicle Commission contractor that runs the system, has disputed the governor’s characterization of what happened. The company said it accurately recorded the information it received and that state officials had access to records showing the applicants were not citizens.

The company also said all 6,600 people answered “no” when asked whether they were citizens but separately answered “yes” when asked whether they wanted to register to vote.

The state fixed the error in June 2024, and MVC officials asked IDEMIA to update the software so anyone who answered “no” when asked whether they were a U.S. citizen would automatically decline to register to vote.

Still, Sherrill has blamed the company, saying information from applicants who identified themselves as noncitizens should never have been transmitted for voter registration.

It also remains unclear why the state did not promptly remove the registrations after the software error was corrected.

A spokesman for the former governor said Murphy knew nothing about the failure until Sherrill announced it July 21.

“Prior to Tuesday, Governor Murphy had no knowledge of any software glitch at the Motor Vehicle Commission that resulted in non-citizens being inadvertently added to New Jersey’s voter rolls,” spokesman Mahen Gunaratna told the New Jersey Globe.

Sherrill has said the approximately 400 ineligible voters were not concentrated in any one geographic area and did not belong predominantly to one political party.

No elections hinged on their ballots, she said. But the state has not released the election-by-election and town-by-town information needed for the public to independently evaluate that conclusion.

The Sherrill administration has hired CSG Law, an outside law firm, to determine how the failure happened, who knew about it and why it was not disclosed. The governor has promised to make those findings public.

The U.S. Department of Justice also sent Sherrill a letter requesting detailed information about the approximately 6,600 people, including their names, addresses, birth dates, nationalities, registration dates and registration locations.

For those who voted, the department also requested information showing when and where they voted and, for mail ballots, copies of certifications and signatures.

Sherrill has said the state will not comply because of privacy and immigration concerns.

“From the moment I made this public and launched the investigation, Donald Trump and his followers have moved to weaponize the issue to advance their voter suppression schemes,” Sherrill said Tuesday. “And they are trying to target the individuals affected, who were registered through no fault of their own. I won’t let them do either.”

Local, state and federal Republicans have seized on the error as evidence that the country needs stricter voter identification requirements, including the Trump-backed SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID at the polls.