TRENTON, N.J. – President Trump’s concerns about illegals on U.S. voting rolls have been validated in New Jersey.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill acknowledged Tuesday that a software error at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission improperly registered approximately 6,600 people to vote after they explicitly indicated they were not U.S. citizens while applying for driver’s licenses or identification cards between June 2023 and June 2024. State officials say fewer than 400 of those individuals ultimately cast ballots.
Notably, the disclosure came just days after President Donald Trump devoted part of a nationally televised address to election integrity, citing concerns about non-citizens appearing on voter rolls, and after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent New Jersey officials a letter demanding answers regarding potential non-citizens registered to vote in the state. DHS gave New Jersey two weeks to respond to its findings.
According to Sherrill, she learned of the issue last week and immediately ordered an internal investigation by her chief counsel, directed that anyone mistakenly added to the voter rolls during the affected period be removed, and instructed the MVC’s new administrator to replace the vendor responsible for the flawed system. She said the registrations occurred during the Murphy administration, before she took office in January 2026.
“This happened under the previous administration and, upon learning this information, I immediately ordered my chief counsel to launch an investigation to get to the bottom of what occurred,” said Sherrill. “I also ordered the removal of any residents from our voter rolls who were erroneously added between June 2023 and June 2024. The new MVC Administrator that I appointed has begun the process of replacing the vendor responsible for administering the system.”
The governor described the registrations as occurring “through no fault of their own” because applicants had answered “no” when asked whether they were U.S. citizens, but the software registered them anyway.
Sherrill also used the announcement to criticize President Trump, accusing him of undermining confidence in American elections while arguing that New Jersey’s response demonstrates accountability by identifying and correcting problems when they arise.
Despite Governor Sherrill’s naked attempt at blame-shifting, the admission follows weeks of heightened scrutiny over New Jersey’s voter registration system. Earlier this summer, the New Jersey Republican Party’s Election Integrity Task Force alleged that weaknesses in the MVC’s voter registration process had allowed non-citizens to be added to the rolls. At the same time, DHS recently asserted that its preliminary review identified tens of thousands of potential non-citizens on New Jersey’s voter lists, a broader claim that remains disputed by state officials but which may warrant additional inquiry in light of the Sherrill Administration’s bombshell admission.
“Is it a coincidence that this error is being dealt with 7 months into your term, 2 years after it was found, soon after the US Department of Justice asked for our voter rolls and warned of prosecution for knowingly permitting such violations?” opined the watchdog group Citizens for NJ Election Integrity on X. “The real problem is that neither the state nor the counties verify new registrations coming from the Motor Vehicle Commission or other state agencies for citizenship to catch those non-citizens who illegally check the box that they are citizens. When will you fix that issue, Governor?”
