Voter Rolls Glitch Stuns New Jersey

New Jersey just admitted that a “software error” put about 6,600 noncitizens on the voter rolls, and nearly 400 of them actually cast ballots.

Story Snapshot

About 6,600 people who said they were not citizens were still registered to vote through New Jersey’s motor vehicle system.
State officials say fewer than 400 noncitizens went on to vote while wrongly registered, in elections across the state.
The error came from a vendor-run software system at the Motor Vehicle Commission, which Gov. Mikie Sherrill is now moving to replace.
The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security says tens of thousands of noncitizens appear on voter rolls in New Jersey and other states, fueling calls for stronger proof-of-citizenship rules.

How Thousands of Noncitizens Ended Up on New Jersey’s Voter Rolls

Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, announced that a serious error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System registered roughly 6,600 people who had clearly answered “no” when asked if they were United States citizens.

These registrations happened between June 2023 and June 2024, when people applied for driver’s licenses or state ID cards and used the built-in voter registration process. The state says the glitch came from software run by a vendor and that the problem started under the previous gubernatorial administration.

State officials say the affected applicants were not trying to cheat the system; they disclosed that they were not citizens when asked on the keypad at motor vehicle offices. Despite that clear answer, the faulty software still pushed their names onto the voter rolls “through no fault of their own,” as Sherrill put it.

That means the registrations were not the result of normal eligibility checks or organized schemes, but a breakdown in a government-run technology system that was supposed to protect election integrity.

Hundreds of Illegal Ballots and an Ongoing Investigation

New Jersey’s preliminary review shows that fewer than 400 of the wrongly registered noncitizens later voted in elections. These voters were spread across the state and were listed in different party categories, including Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters.

Sherrill told reporters the state does not yet have proof that those ballots changed the outcome of any specific race, but she admitted they could have been cast in any election held after the faulty registrations.

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Sherrill said she has ordered an independent investigation to find out exactly what went wrong and who is responsible. The state is sending letters to people impacted by the error and has started removing all improper registrations from the voter rolls.

The Motor Vehicle Commission’s new administrator is moving to replace the vendor that ran the faulty system, and the investigation is expected to look at software logs and data to see how noncitizen answers were turned into active voter records.

Election Integrity, Federal Findings, and What Comes Next

The case in New Jersey comes as the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security reports thousands of noncitizens on voter rolls across several states. For New Jersey alone, the department’s preliminary review pointed to 35,152 noncitizens in state records, a number that includes but also goes beyond the 6,600 tied to this software error.

California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania were also flagged, with California’s figure near 190,832, showing that registration problems are not limited to one state or party.

Election experts say noncitizen voting remains rare, but large motor-voter systems have made big mistakes before, including software errors in California that affected tens of thousands of registrations.

The New Jersey case is a warning that voter rolls can be changed by technology problems that no citizen ever sees. It strengthens arguments for proof-of-citizenship safeguards, tougher testing of registration software, and regular audits so that only eligible American citizens help choose the country’s leaders.