RNC Issues NVRA Notices to New Jersey Over MVC Registration Error

Overview

• The Republican National Committee sent formal National Voter Registration Act notices on Friday to New Jersey’s secretary of state and election officials in six counties demanding records about noncitizen removals and warning of lawsuits if documents are not produced by Sept. 15.
• State officials have said a Motor Vehicle Commission software error registered about 6,600 people to vote between June 2023 and June 2024 and that roughly 5,100 of those records were removed while about 1,450 were changed to ‘rejected’ for county review.
• The dispute now involves multiple oversight tracks: the RNC’s NVRA demand, ongoing state review and county case work ahead of the November election, and federal inquiries by the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security.
• The vendor IDEMIA disputes the state’s account that a software fault caused the error and the state has hired CSG Law for an independent review as prosecutors have flagged a small number of alleged illegal votes that led to charges.
• Automatic voter registration at motor vehicle offices relies on applicants’ attestations of citizenship rather than documentary proof so errors can produce false registrations and force officials to balance correcting rolls with protecting eligible voters from wrongful removal.