(The Center Square) — New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said the state is making progress in efforts to remove more than thousands of non-citizens who were illegally registered to vote.
Sherrill on Wednesday reiterated claims that her administration has moved “aggressively” to confront the voter registration scandal that has become national news ahead of the midterm elections.
“My Administration has continued to move aggressively to fix the error at the Motor Vehicle Commission under the previous administration, to correct our voter rolls, and to protect the voting rights of eligible New Jerseyans,” Sherrill said in a statement I said we would conduct a thorough, complete, and fair investigation, and that is exactly what we are doing.”
The state Division of Elections has removed more than 5,100 individuals who were registered solely due to a “software error” she said. Another 1,450 registered individuals have had their registration status changed to rejected to prevent them from voting pending additional review, she said. Those voter registrations have been referred to county officials for further review, according to the Sherrill administration.
“These are individuals who were impacted by the system error but have separate voter registrations, attestations, or transactions in the system, such that further review is required to determine whether these individuals are eligible and should be registered,” the administration said in a summary of the investigation.
“Everyone in this modified status will not be able to vote until their record is resolved and their eligibility is verified,” it added.
New Jersey’s preliminary investigation, unveiled in mid-July, found that between June 2023 and 2024 about 6,600 non-citizens were erroneously registered to vote by the state Motor Vehicle Commission’s software system when they were applying for state drivers’ licenses or identification.
At least 400 of those non-citizens cast ballots in elections during those years, according to the Sherrill administration.
Sherrill has blamed a “software glitch” by Idemia, a France-based technology company that operates the motor vehicle registration system that occurred under then Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who left office in January.
But the company has pushed back on those claims, saying it used written specifications provided by the Murphy administration and that New Jersey’s Division of Elections was responsible for verifying eligibility to vote.
New Jersey Republicans are calling for a special legislative commission to look into the integrity of the state’s voting system in the wake of the scandal. They’ve also filed a bill that would eliminate the state’s automatic voter registration system.
Sherrill, a former congresswoman, also use the update to again criticize President Donald Trump and accuse his administration of trying to “weaponize” the incident to cast doubt on the upcoming midterm elections.
“My commitment to the people of New Jersey is to confront this issue with the urgency it deserves, so we have strong and fair elections,” she said. “That stands in contrast to the Trump Administration and Republicans, whose only interest has been in trying to use this issue for political gain.”
