New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Tuesday that the state has removed roughly 6,600 noncitizens from its voter rolls who would have been eligible to vote in the 2024 presidential election.
Sherrill, a Democrat, said there was a “serious software error” in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System that led to thousands of people without legal status being registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024.
“In the case of this error, some individuals indicated that they weren’t citizens and weren’t eligible to vote, but the software registered them anyway. The error in the software was corrected a year later in June of 2024,” Sherrill said in a press conference.
According to the state’s preliminary findings, fewer than 400 individuals who were improperly registered ended up voting. Sherill said they lived all across the state and mostly lacked a party affiliation, though there were some registered as Democrats or Republicans.
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Sherill said that immediately upon learning this last Wednesday, she ordered an immediate investigation and the removal of anyone who was not supposed to be on the state’s voter rolls.
She added that the state’s Division of Elections is currently working to remove ineligible voters.
“I am appalled by the reckless failures that allowed this to happen and the lack of transparency shown by those in charge at the time. This failure didn’t occur under my watch, but accountability starts now. I am taking action to prevent anything like it from occurring in the future and make sure those responsible are held accountable,” Sherrill said in a statement on social media.
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She also attacked President Donald Trump for working to “undermine Americans’ faith in our elections by spreading lies about legitimate election results, attempting to overturn a free and fair election, encouraging an attack on our Capitol when he couldn’t accept the will of the voters, and defunding election security at the federal level.”
This comes after Trump announced last week that the Department of Homeland Security found that 250,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in New Jersey, California, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
In the four letters dated Friday, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the department compared publicly available voter registration records with federal immigration data and uncovered thousands of potential matches. He asked state election officials to work with DHS to verify the identities before taking any action.
According to the letters, DHS estimates there may be as many as 190,832 noncitizens registered to vote in California, 35,152 in New Jersey, 15,903 in Nevada and 14,576 in Pennsylvania.
The department said it found 81,336 California registrants, 19,497 New Jersey registrants, 8,576 Nevada registrants and 8,594 Pennsylvania registrants whose names, dates of birth, addresses and Social Security numbers match noncitizens in DHS records.
DHS has described these findings as a preliminary review.
