DUMONT, N.J. — New Jersey’s voter registration scandal may have just produced another troubling data point — this time discovered not by state election officials, auditors, or investigators, but by a couple of campaign canvassers knocking on doors.
Assemblyman Robert Auth (R-Bergen) said Wednesday that two members of his staff were canvassing approximately 30 homes in Dumont in support of Councilman Lou Sciarrino when they encountered a resident with an unexpected response.
“I can’t vote, I have a green card,” Auth quoted the woman as telling the canvassers in a social media post.
There was just one problem: according to Auth, a subsequent check of voter records showed that the woman was registered to vote, with a registration date of June 22, 2026.
Auth did not allege that the resident knowingly registered herself or ever cast a ballot. In fact, her response to the canvassers would appear to suggest that she understood she was ineligible to vote.
The bigger question is how she ended up on the rolls in the first place.
“If we found an illegal registration just by knocking on a few doors, how many more people across New Jersey are registered improperly, and how many of them don’t even know it?” Auth asked.
It’s a particularly relevant question in light of New Jersey’s still-unfolding voter registration scandal.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed last month that approximately 6,600 individuals who had indicated to the Motor Vehicle Commission that they were not U.S. citizens were nevertheless registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024. The administration said fewer than 400 subsequently cast ballots and blamed the registrations on a software problem involving the MVC voter-registration process.
The Dumont case could be especially significant because Auth says the resident was registered in June 2026, roughly two years after the period implicated in the acknowledged MVC problem.
That leaves an obvious question for Trenton: Was this registration somehow connected to the already-disclosed failure, or is there another problem with New Jersey’s voter registration system that remains unidentified?
Federal lawmakers are asking questions, too. House Judiciary Committee Republicans this week demanded information from IDEMIA, the vendor involved in New Jersey’s MVC registration system, as congressional scrutiny of the scandal intensifies.
Auth said he is contacting the county clerk’s office to make sure the individual registration is addressed.
One accidental registration might ordinarily be dismissed as an isolated mistake. Against the backdrop of 6,600 acknowledged improper registrations, however, a green card holder appearing on the rolls in 2026 warrants something more than a shrug.
Auth believes New Jersey voters deserve to know how it happened — and whether anyone in Trenton knows how often it is still happening.
