WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressional Republicans are ramping up the pressure on New Jersey’s voter registration scandal.
In a letter sent Monday to Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State Dale Caldwell, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil, Election Subcommittee Chair Laurel Lee, and Congressman Jeff Van Drew demanded extensive records related to the state’s admission that approximately 6,600 noncitizens were improperly registered to vote through the Motor Vehicle Commission between June 2023 and June 2024. Governor Mikie Sherrill has acknowledged that roughly 400 of those individuals ultimately cast ballots.
The four-page oversight letter argues that the revelations raise serious questions about New Jersey’s compliance with federal election laws, including the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the Civil Rights Act, and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The lawmakers also cast doubt on the Murphy-Sherrill administration’s explanation that a software glitch was solely to blame.
The letter points to public statements from voting system vendor IDEMIA, which has disputed the governor’s account and asserted that citizenship information was accurately captured and available to the MVC all along. According to the letter, IDEMIA has said the registrations stopped only after the MVC requested a settings change in June 2024, raising questions about why the state allegedly failed to remove ineligible registrants or publicly disclose the problem for more than two years.
Jordan, Steil, Lee, and Van Drew are demanding records dating back to January 1, 2023, including internal communications about compliance with federal voting laws, safeguards designed to prevent noncitizen registrations, any investigations into the registration errors, communications with IDEMIA, and documentation explaining how state officials concluded the registrations were accidental.
The committees are also seeking records explaining why New Jersey has not cooperated with the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database to verify voter eligibility and want communications concerning the state’s efforts to identify and eliminate noncitizens from the voter rolls.
The letter gives Caldwell until 5:00 p.m. on August 17 to produce the requested documents.
The congressional inquiry represents the latest escalation in what has become one of the biggest election administration controversies in modern New Jersey history. While the Sherrill administration has maintained the registrations resulted from an administrative error, Republicans increasingly appear focused on a broader question: not simply how thousands of noncitizens were added to the voter rolls, but whether state officials knew about the problem long before the public was informed—and whether they complied with their obligations under federal law once they did.
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