{"id":776835,"date":"2026-07-22T00:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776835\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T00:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:30:10","slug":"6600-noncitizens-were-registered-to-vote-in-n-j-because-of-a-software-error-governor-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776835\/","title":{"rendered":"6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote in N.J. because of a \u2018software error,\u2019 governor says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roughly 6,600 noncitizens<\/a> were unwittingly registered to vote in New Jersey from 2023 to 2024, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

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Roughly 400 of them improperly cast votes<\/a>, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were registered as Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state,\u201d said Sherrill, a Democrat. She added that it is unclear which elections they voted in and said there was \u201cno evidence at this time that any elections were swayed\u201d as a result.<\/p>\n

Sherrill said that the names are being removed from the voter rolls and that the noncitizens had been registered through no fault of their own because of \u201ca serious software error in New Jersey\u2019s Motor Vehicle System\u201d from June 2023 to June 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese individuals answered \u2018no\u2019 when asked on a keypad whether they were a U.S. citizen when applying for drivers\u2019 licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway,\u201d Sherrill said.<\/p>\n

While the number of noncitizens who voted in New Jersey is a tiny percentage of the state\u2019s overall electorate, the finding could add fuel to President Donald Trump\u2019s claims that they are voting in large numbers in U.S. elections. He used a primetime speech from the White House<\/a> last week to push Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would impose new photo ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements to vote.<\/p>\n

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement that the New Jersey incident \u201cunderscores the absolute necessity of the SAVE America Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats and their media allies have repeatedly said it is impossible for noncitizens to register to vote, let alone cast a ballot. Time and again, they have been proven wrong,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Sherrill said in a statement that \u201cDonald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity.\u201d While his administration \u201ctries to weaponize elections for political gain,\u201d she said, \u201cI am ensuring we protect our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later on Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a letter posted to X<\/a> that the Justice Department is investigating the incident. It\u2019s asking for the full names, dates of birth, nationalities, addresses, and registration dates of all 6,600 noncitizens, and for the 400 people who Sherrill says voted in past elections, including when and where they voted.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnsuring that U.S. citizens\u2019 votes are not illegally diluted by noncitizens\u2019 votes is of paramount importance,\u201d Dhillon wrote in her letter to Sherrill.<\/p>\n

Experts say that this type of error does occur rarely, affecting thousands in a country with nearly 300 million registrants. Still, the scale of the mistake in New Jersey goes beyond recent examples in other states.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Oregon officials announced they had uncovered an administrative error that put more than 1,200 noncitizens on the state\u2019s voter rolls. And in 2018, California officials said they may have registered 1,500 noncitizens accidentally.<\/p>\n

The number of mistaken registrants who cast ballots is typically quite small: In Oregon, officials said, nine people who had been mistakenly registered appeared to have cast a ballot.<\/p>\n

Sherrill, who took office in January, said the mistake in New Jersey happened during former Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy\u2019s tenure. She said it was \u201cunacceptable that no one in the prior administration brought this to light, demanded accountability or took action when it happened years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Sherrill said she found out about the issue Wednesday \u2014 two days before Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin alleged in a letter<\/a> that 35,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in the state.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security gave the state two weeks to respond and confirm its \u201cintentions to collaborate with DHS in order to ensure free, fair, and honest elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sherrill said the state has asked for evidence of Mullin\u2019s claim and \u201cheard nothing back.\u201d She added she does not intend to turn personally identifying information over to the federal government because the Trump administration \u201ccontinues to weaponize it against people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mullin responded to a social media post in which Sherrill divulged the error, saying, \u201cAppreciate you responding back to our letter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking forward to working with you to secure your elections in the future,\u201d he said on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sherrill indicated in her statement that her office would deal with the issue itself. \u201cWhen we find a problem, we don\u2019t hide it, deny it, or invent conspiracies. We investigate it, we fix it, and we tell the public. That\u2019s what accountability and good governance look like, and that\u2019s exactly what my administration is doing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She said her office has launched its own investigation and \u201cwill be holding people accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

They do not include those who were registered mistakenly. Sherrill said that she has concerns that their immigration status could be affected as a result of the mistake and that it would be \u201cthe utmost in hypocrisy for the state to charge them when it\u2019s our fault.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said officials are replacing the vendor responsible for the error, Idemia, \u201cto make sure nothing like this happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Roughly 6,600 noncitizens were unwittingly registered to vote in New Jersey from 2023 to 2024, Gov. Mikie Sherrill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-776835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}