New Jersey has removed about 6,600 ineligible voters from its voter rolls after a software error in the state's motor vehicle system allowed improper registrations, adding to a pattern of cases involving noncitizen voting that has drawn fresh warnings from President Donald Trump.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, said the ineligible voters were registered because of a «serious software error» in the state's Motor Vehicle System. Preliminary findings show that fewer than 400 of the improperly registered individuals cast ballots. They lived across the state, and most had no party affiliation, though some were registered as Democrats or Republicans, according to the announcement.
The disclosure came within a week of a speech by Trump in which he described digital interference in elections as a «cyber threat aimed at the very heart of our democracy.» The president has repeatedly pressed states to remove ineligible voters and has made election integrity a central focus in recent weeks.
The New Jersey case is the latest documented failure in a 25-year record of state reviews, software failures, and prosecutions that have found noncitizens on voter rolls and, in some documented cases, casting ballots. Election experts said the episodes establish a recurring vulnerability.
«It's a major vulnerability,» said Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, a conservative think tank. «And we have seen just within the last couple of years many states that have checked their voter rolls and found noncitizens on them... So, this is a big problem.»
Snead said states are required by federal law to keep voter rolls accurate, and it is a federal crime for a noncitizen to register or vote. But there is no federal requirement that states report how many noncitizens they find, leaving enforcement uneven across the country. He argued that policies adopted in some Democratic-led states, such as automatic voter registration, issuing driver's licenses to immigrants without legal status, and restrictions on voter ID requirements, make such problems worse. «This is the inevitable outcome of all of those policies,» he said.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said preliminary reviews of state records found «as many as» 250,000 noncitizens registered to vote across four states: 35,152 in New Jersey, 190,832 in California, 15,903 in Nevada, and 14,576 in Pennsylvania. In a statement, Mullin said the situation «shouldn't be a red or blue state issue: ONLY Americans should elect American leaders.» He added that state governors had been put on notice. The department did not provide additional details about its methodology.
Charles Stewart III, a political science professor at MIT who specializes in elections, said the National Voter Registration Act is «silent on the issue of noncitizens on the roll.» Because the subject was not a concern in the early 1990s, he said, states now face ambiguity over whether they are obligated to audit their rolls for noncitizens. Stewart said that ambiguity is central to Trump's executive orders, the proposed Save America Act, and a number of lawsuits over election administration.
New Jersey is not alone. Reviews conducted since 2020 have found significant numbers of noncitizens registered to vote in Louisiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois, according to a review of state findings. Because states use different methods and are not required to publicize their reviews, experts say the full extent of the problem remains unknown.
State officials in New Jersey did not respond to requests for clarification about which elections the roughly 400 ineligible voters participated in or about the state's auditing protocols. The state said the removals were part of an effort to ensure that only eligible citizens remain on the voter rolls.
