New Jersey Republicans Seize on 6,600 Noncitizen Voter Registration Error as Election Integrity Battle Intensifies

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed Tuesday that a software malfunction within the state’s Motor Vehicle System resulted in the registration of approximately 6,600 individuals who declared themselves ineligible for citizenship between June 2023 and June 2024. The Democratic governor attributed the error to her administration’s predecessor, noting that preliminary findings suggest 400 of those improperly registered individuals actually cast ballots. Sherrill emphasized the glitch occurred before she took office and faulted the prior administration, the MVC, and software vendor IDEMIA for the oversight.

Republican legislators in New Jersey responded swiftly to the disclosure, demanding a comprehensive halt on all automatic voter registrations through the MVC pending a full investigation spanning the past decade. State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon told Fox News Digital that GOP lawmakers had warned for years about vulnerabilities in the system, only to be repeatedly assured such a breach was impossible. O’Scanlon further argued that Democrats’ 2020 decision to permit undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses had compounded the risk, saying the situation represented a far graver problem than publicly acknowledged.

IDEMIA pushed back against Sherrill’s blame, issuing a statement clarifying that the company’s function was limited to transmitting data through the motor vehicle system, with the state’s Division of Elections ultimately responsible for verifying voter eligibility. The company’s rebuttal shifted accountability toward state authorities for failing to catch the error sooner.

Vice President JD Vance seized on the incident to advocate for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, challenging New Jersey’s Democratic senators to support the federal measure. Sen. Andy Kim countered on MSNBC that while the registration failure required immediate remedy and accountability, it did not constitute evidence of the widespread election fraud that President Trump has alleged, positioning the issue as limited in scope rather than systemic.

New Jersey Assembly Republican Leader John DiMaio called for both an immediate suspension of automatic MVC registrations and a complete audit of the state’s voter rolls, asserting the actual number of improperly registered noncitizens likely exceeded the disclosed figure. His demands included cooperation with federal authorities to remove all undocumented immigrants from election rolls. State Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco linked the scandal directly to the 2020 policy allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, contending that decision set the stage for subsequent administrative failures.