A computer software glitch at New Jersey’s motor vehicle agency accidentally placed approximately 6,600 non-U.S. citizens on the state’s voter rolls, though fewer than 400 of them actually voted in elections since 2023, Governor Mikie Sherrill announced Tuesday.
The disclosure arrives amid an aggressive push by President Donald Trump, a Republican, to crack down on noncitizen voting ahead of November’s congressional elections — an issue that election experts have long said does not represent a significant threat to American elections.
Sherrill, a Democrat who assumed office in January, said she found out last week about the flaw within New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System. The bug caused individuals who had indicated they were not U.S. citizens to be registered as voters anyway, during a period spanning June 2023 through June 2024. She emphasized that those affected did nothing wrong and were enrolled “through no fault of their own.”
A preliminary state review found that the fewer than 400 people who did vote were spread across party lines — including Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters — located throughout the state. Sherrill announced she has directed officials to remove the mistakenly registered individuals from the voter rolls and said she will replace the vendor whose error caused the problem, noting the issue predates her administration.
“As the Trump administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring we protect our elections,” Sherrill said in a statement. “The difference is simple: when we find a problem, we don’t hide it, deny it, or invent conspiracies. We investigate it, we fix it, and we tell the public. That’s what accountability and good governance look like, and that’s exactly what my administration is doing.”
Trump has spent years casting doubt on election results, repeatedly and falsely claiming his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden was the result of fraud. He has also made other unsubstantiated claims, including that mail-in voting is heavily fraudulent, that voting machines cannot be trusted, and that noncitizen voting is rampant across the country.
Multiple court rulings and vote recounts found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. A Reuters data analysis found that instances of noncitizen voting were frequently accidental, stemming from misinformation or confusion rather than deliberate wrongdoing.
Last week, the Trump administration warned state officials they could face fines and criminal charges if they refuse to comply with election security directives, including handing over unredacted voter registration data to the federal government.
New Jersey was among four states that U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin asked last week to audit their voter rolls. Mullin claimed there were more than 250,000 potential violations across the four states — which also included California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania — but offered no supporting evidence and did not explain what criteria his department used to flag those cases.
Following Sherrill’s announcement, Mullin wrote on X: “Looking forward to working with you to secure your elections in the future.”
Federal courts have moved to block Trump administration attempts to obtain unredacted voter rolls from states, citing concerns about the sensitive personal information those records contain.
