New Jersey authorities reported on Tuesday that a technical problem in voter-registration processing resulted in roughly 6,600 people who indicated they were not U.S. citizens being placed on the state's voter rolls over a one-year period from June 2023 to June 2024. The state s initial checks found that under 400 of those mistakenly registered individuals had actually voted, according to Governor Mikie Sherrill.
Governor Sherrill said the software glitch affected applications for driver s licenses and state identification cards, where applicants had answered "no" to the question asking whether they were U.S. citizens. She said the error occurred before she took office in January and that the defective software was fixed in 2024. Sherrill announced she had ordered the removal of the improperly added registrants and would replace the vendor responsible for the system that caused the issue.
At a press conference, Sherrill emphasized her administration s approach to election issues. "As the Trump Administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring that we protect our elections," she said. "Let me be clear: Donald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity ... The difference between my administration and this White House is stark: we don t deflect, deny or exploit problems for our own gain. We find them, and we fix them."
The announcement immediately entered a broader national political conversation. The White House pointed to the New Jersey disclosure as validation for calls to tighten voter-registration rules, including the SAVE America Act, legislation championed by Republicans that would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
"This latest incident underscores the absolute necessity of the SAVE America Act," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement. The administration has argued stricter documentation would prevent improper registrations, while Democrats and voting rights advocates counter that the proposed requirements would disenfranchise eligible voters who lack the specified paperwork.
Sherrill said the state s preliminary analysis showed the roughly 400 who voted included people registered with Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated affiliations. She added there is "no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed." The governor also noted that more than 4 million people cast ballots in New Jersey in the 2024 presidential election, so even if about 400 non-citizens voted in that contest, their ballots would represent fewer than one in 10,000 cast.
The disclosure intersects with a pattern of claims made by former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly asserted that voting by non-citizens was a factor in his 2020 election loss. In recent public remarks, he said his administration had discovered 278,000 non-citizens registered to vote across four states, including New Jersey, though he did not provide documentation showing how many had actually participated in elections.
Following the renewed claims, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent a letter to the four states cited by Trump - New Jersey, California, Nevada and Pennsylvania - asking them to review their voter rolls and respond within two weeks. That outreach has prompted responses from several state officials who expressed skepticism about the figures provided.
Nevada s Democratic secretary of state, Francisco Aguilar, described the numbers as "wildly speculative at best," saying the Department of Homeland Security had not provided supporting evidence. Pennsylvania election officials noted that available evidence indicates non-citizen voting is "extremely rare," but said they would examine any information provided by DHS to evaluate the claims. California s secretary of state, Shirley Weber, said she would carefully review the DHS letter while criticizing what she called thoroughly debunked assertions by Trump.
The New Jersey finding aligns with past analyses showing that instances of voting by non-citizens are uncommon and often arise from error or confusion rather than deliberate fraud. Reuters data analysis, cited by state and federal officials in the recent public exchanges, has previously concluded that such violations are extremely rare and frequently traceable to mistakes.
Sherrill said she learned of the software problem one day before Trump delivered a prime-time address focused on election security. That address amplified the ongoing debate over whether more stringent registration checks are needed and intensified calls by the White House and others for legislative changes that would impose proof-of-citizenship requirements.
Democrats in the Senate have so far blocked the SAVE America Act, arguing the measure would disproportionately affect younger voters, people of color and lower-income workers who are less likely to possess the required documentation. Voting rights groups and Democratic leaders contend the bill is intended to reduce turnout among those constituencies rather than to fix systemic problems.
The state said the vendor responsible for the registration software will be replaced, and that the error itself was corrected during 2024. Until the state completes any further review, Sherrill s office described the analysis as preliminary. The governor reiterated a commitment to safeguarding elections while disputing the credibility of national actors who she said sought to exploit the discovery for political purposes.
For now, New Jersey officials have removed the improperly registered entries from the rolls and continue to evaluate the scope of the impact. The episode has prompted renewed attention to the mechanics of voter registration systems and the ways administrative errors can intersect with partisan debates over election integrity.