NJMVC voter registration error: Sherrill rejects Republican criticism, defends state response

Governor accuses some Republican critics of undermining election integrity

Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Friday fired back at a group of House Republicans demanding answers about New Jersey’s voter registration problems, accusing several of the lawmakers of trying to undermine elections themselves.

Her response came on the Aug. 21 deadline that Republican lawmakers had given Sherrill to answer questions about a Motor Vehicle Commission software error that improperly registered about 6,600 people to vote between June 2023 and June 2024.

“My administration is fully committed to ensuring that elections in New Jersey remain free and fair, and we treat the integrity of the State’s elections as a matter of the utmost seriousness,” Sherrill wrote. “This work remains my focus.”

Much of the governor’s response was devoted to turning the Republicans’ criticism back on them.

“Washington Republicans on the other hand, seem much more concerned with using the issue for political gain than they are with protecting our elections,” Sherrill wrote.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., led 18 other House Republicans in sending Sherrill a letter July 24 after she disclosed that a software failure at the MVC resulted in just under 6,600 people who indicated they were not U.S. citizens being registered to vote.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., also signed the letter. Rep. Tom Kean Jr., R-N.J., New Jersey’s other Republican member of Congress, did not.

The Republicans called the incident a “catastrophic breakdown” and questioned whether the state could be certain the registrations resulted from a software error rather than an intentional act. They also asked Sherrill about voter-roll maintenance, whether ballots were cast by people affected by the error, whether any elections were decided by fewer votes than the number of affected voters, and whether she would support requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Sherrill said Friday that some of the lawmakers questioning her have their own records to answer for.

“Several signatories to your July 24th letter to me have supported President Trump in his efforts to undermine our election system and defund election security. Seven of you attempted to overturn the 2020 elections and voted to challenge the electoral votes of states,” Sherrill wrote.

She also said one of the lawmakers who signed the letter “employed an operative convicted of voter fraud, bribery, and blackmail.”

State continues review of registrations

The dispute comes as the Sherrill administration is working to determine exactly what happened at the MVC and whether everyone caught up in the software problem was actually ineligible to vote.

The error occurred between June 2023 and June 2024, during former Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration. People applying for driver’s licenses or identification cards who answered “no” when asked whether they were U.S. citizens could still check yes to register to vote. Sherrill first publicly disclosed the problem July 21.

The administration initially said about 6,600 people were registered because of the error, and fewer than 400 had voted in an election. The state subsequently began removing registrations while sending cases requiring additional scrutiny to county election officials.

As of this week, the state said about 5,100 registrations had been removed from the system.

Roughly 1,450 others had been blocked pending further review by county election officials. About 220 of the people in that group voted but were not first time voters as a result of the registration glitch, and had separate voter records indicating they may have already been eligible to vote.

About 340 people who were newly registered because of the MVC problem voted.

Sherrill has stressed that the state must determine which people were actually ineligible rather than assuming that everyone who selected “no” during an MVC transaction was a noncitizen. Some people flagged by the review may in fact be U.S. citizens.

Sherrill rejects SAVE America Act argument

The MVC software problem has quickly become part of a broader partisan fight over election laws. Republicans have cited the New Jersey case while pushing for tighter voter registration requirements, including federal legislation requiring documents proving citizenship.

In their July letter, the Republican lawmakers asked Sherrill whether she would support the SAVE America Act, arguing that proof-of-citizenship requirements could prevent noncitizens from registering.

Sherrill rejected their contention that the legislation would have prevented New Jersey’s MVC problem.

“Furthermore, you misrepresent in your letter that the SAVE America Act would have prevented this system error. I encourage you to become more familiar with the legislation you have cosponsored. As your letter acknowledges, the affected individuals answered that they were not citizens (although subsequent investigation indicates that some may, in fact, have had valid registrations),” Sherrill wrote.

She then broadened her response to proposals that would give the federal government a larger role in voter registration systems, explicitly invoking Trump and arguing that such efforts could threaten voter privacy and states’ authority over elections.

“Proposals to expand the federal government’s role in voter registration systems, including through a centralized registry of voters, raise important concerns regarding personal privacy and abuses of power under President Trump, who has shown time and time again that he will do anything to ensure that only those who support him are able to vote,” Sherrill wrote. “It is exactly this type of concern that our Founding Fathers sought to guard against when they gave the states the power to administer elections.”

Sherrill said her administration would continue addressing the MVC problem with transparency, integrity, and accountability, and continue sharing information with the public.

The full letter