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New Jersey officials said Tuesday that a software error at the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission improperly registered about 6,600 noncitizens to vote over a one-year period, with nearly 400 of those individuals casting ballots before the registrations were removed.
State officials said the error occurred between June 2023 and June 2024, before Gov. Mikie Sherrill took office.
According to the administration, the affected individuals were applying for driver’s licenses or identification cards and indicated they were not U.S. citizens. Despite those responses, the state’s voter registration system added them to the voter rolls.
“Through no fault of their own, the system registered them,” Sherrill said in a statement.
The announcement came days after President Donald Trump claimed during a televised address that New Jersey had tens of thousands of noncitizens registered to vote.
President Trump said 35,152 noncitizens were on New Jersey’s voter rolls and estimated that about 250,000 were registered across New Jersey, California, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
Sherrill said she learned of the software problem last week and immediately ordered an investigation, as well as the removal of anyone improperly registered during the affected period.
“I also ordered the removal of any residents from our voter rolls who were erroneously added between June 2023 and June 2024,” she said. “The new MVC administrator that I appointed has begun the process of replacing the vendor responsible for administering the system.”
The vendor, IDEMIA, provides digital identity and biometric technology for government agencies, including enrollment services for TSA PreCheck.
According to Sherrill, the state has already removed the erroneous registrations.
“Our preliminary analysis shows fewer than 400 individuals who were newly registered for the first time because of the error voted,” she said. “They were registered as Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state.”
State officials have not identified which elections those ballots were cast in or whether they affected the outcome of any contests.
