Hundreds of non-citizens voted in NJ elections since 2023 — but Dem gov still blames Trump

WASHINGTON — Approximately 400 non-citizens cast ballots illegally in New Jersey elections since 2023 after more than 6,000 were wrongly added to the Garden State’s voter rolls, Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill admitted Tuesday.

Despite the mortifying disclosure, Sherrill managed to take a swipe at President Trump when asked about the possibility of him using New Jersey as an example of vulnerable elections.

“I think that Donald Trump has done more to undermine free elections in this country than certainly anyone in my lifetime, including [Russian President] Vladimir Putin,” claimed the governor, adding that the president “has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity.”

In a prime-time address to the nation last week, Trump claimed nearly 250,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, with up to 35,152 wrongly enrolled in the Garden State. 

Sherrill confirmed Tuesday she had received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security quoting that same figure and claimed that “we have asked them for any evidence of this, where they got that number, who this is. We’ve received nothing back yet.”

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The voting snafu stemmed from a software screwup at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, which automatically registered around 6,600 non-Americans to vote between June 2023 and June 2024.

Despite applicants for driver’s licenses or ID cards indicating “no” on a keypad when asked if they were citizens, the system recorded them as eligible to vote anyway.

The roughly 400 people who illegally voted were “registered as Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state,” said Sherrill, who added that “we have no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed.”

New Jersey is one of 23 states, along with the District of Columbia, that allows automatic voter registration through their motor vehicle bureau — with the onus on residents to opt out. 

The New Jersey Globe reported that the vendor responsible for the debacle is IDEMIA, a French firm that owns the provider of identity verification services behind TSA PreCheck and other government programs.

Sherrill also tore into her predecessor, Phil Murphy, without mentioning him by name.

“It’s unacceptable that no one in the previous administration brought this to light, demanded accountability, or took action when it happened years ago,” she said. “For too long, the trend playbook has been to avoid tackling and solving tough problems.”

“This failure didn’t occur under my watch, but accountability starts now because the people of New Jersey shouldn’t have to wait a year for a problem to get solved, or two years to learn it even happened.” 

In response to the fiasco, Sherrill said that her office has hired an independent firm, CSG Law, to investigate the issue and plans to switch software vendors as soon as next year. 

Officials are also sending letters to people impacted by the failure and scrambling to boot non-citizens off the voter rolls. 

“My team is taking a hard look at the process failures that occurred under the previous administration, and the guardrails we can put down for the future,” Sherrill said. 

“I’ve taken several oaths to support and defend our Constitution as a Navy pilot, a federal prosecutor, and an elected official,” she went on. “Election integrity is core to that oath. It’s my duty as governor to make sure our elections are free, fair, and secure.”

Revelations about the voter roll disaster in New Jersey come as Republicans in Congress are pushing for more robust election integrity measures.

This week, the House is scheduled to vote on a bill that would ban stock trades by members of Congress and also impose voter ID requirements. 

Additionally, both chambers of Congress are set to consider a blueprint for a third reconciliation bill that features a watered-down version of Trump’s prized Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote.