New Jersey’s Noncitizen Voter Registration Crisis Expands Beyond Motor Vehicle Commission

New Jersey’s Republican lawmakers are intensifying calls for a comprehensive legislative investigation into the state’s voter registration system after discovering that roughly 75,000 noncitizens were summoned for jury duty through state databases. State Sen. Kristin Corrado, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital that she had warned Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration for years that automatic voter registration lacked sufficient safeguards, only to be dismissed repeatedly.

Corrado and Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco are demanding a bipartisan special investigation with subpoena power, arguing that the governor’s internal review is too limited in scope. The jury duty revelation emerged shortly after Corrado spoke to media outlets, broadening the scope of the controversy far beyond the initial Motor Vehicle Commission glitch that first drew public attention to the problem.

Corrado criticized the state’s reliance on an honor system for voter eligibility verification, noting that Motor Vehicle Commission officials told her citizens were simply placed “on notice” that noncitizens could not register. “We did not think that was acceptable or satisfactory or enough of a safeguard,” she said, pointing to years of unheeded Republican warnings about security deficiencies.

Senate President Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat from Linden, indicated his chamber would wait for Gov. Sherrill’s independent investigation to conclude before considering additional legislative action. Scutari credited the governor for transparency and said the probe would help restore public confidence in election integrity.

State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon, R-Little Silver, characterized the motor-voter revelations as “the tip of the iceberg” and said the jury duty discovery validated long-standing GOP concerns about election security. “There are real issues here and they were ignored, and we were accused of being conspiracy theorists, only to find out that we were absolutely right,” O’Scanlon said.

Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation to eliminate the motor-voter program and implement voter identification requirements along with regular audits of election databases. State Sen. Joe Pennacchio, R-Boonton, called the 75,000 noncitizen jury summons figure a red flag suggesting state oversight had failed and urged the U.S. Attorney General to launch a federal investigation.

A spokesman for the state court system told Fox News Digital that prospective jurors are asked to certify their citizenship status when completing mandatory qualification questionnaires and can face contempt of court charges for providing false answers. He noted that approximately 75,000 individuals are disqualified from jury service annually based solely on lack of citizenship.