Overview
- An internal Motor Vehicle Commission review found a software malfunction that between 2023 and 2024 added about 6,600 people who identified as noncitizens to New Jersey’s voter rolls, and the state says roughly 400 of those individuals later cast ballots.
- The Division of Elections has already removed more than 4,500 flagged registrations and has sent remaining cases to county election officials for case-by-case review to avoid wrongful removals.
- Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s Civil Rights Division demanded unredacted records on the flagged registrants and voting activity within five business days and the governor rejected the request, saying it lacked legal authority and would not disclose residents’ personal data.
- The Department of Justice says it will pursue the records by legal means, while Department of Homeland Security figures that used a separate data match identified a larger set of possible noncitizen registrants, which keeps the scope of the problem contested.
- Republican state lawmakers are pressing for subpoena-powered investigations and bills to end motor‑voter registration and add voter ID and audits, and the dispute has raised broader concerns about linked state systems that also produce about 75,000 juror disqualifications a year for noncitizens.