As more voter-registration problems arise, New Jersey Gov. Sherrill announces new safeguards

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Glitches in New Jersey voter-registration software are blamed for about 750 more improper registrations that state officials recently discovered, including 60 to people ineligible to vote because they were incarcerated.

The discovery of the voter issues was announced Wednesday by Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who said new safeguards have been implemented by the Motor Vehicle Commission to rectify the problems. None of the improper registrations “involved noncitizens.”

Sherrill said in a statement that two new errors surfaced during a review of the earlier-reported glitch.

“I promised New Jerseyans that we would get to the bottom of this issue and be transparent every step of the way,” the governor said.

Some of the errors discovered go back a decade

The registration errors were triggered by the same software problems found earlier that improperly registered about 6,600 noncitizens to vote.

In the new cases, some of the individuals had pressed “no” when asked if they were old enough to vote, while at the same time listing an eligible age birthdate. Rather than rejecting the application or demanding a clarification, the computer program sent the applications over for registration. An investigation found that in those cases, applicants had mistakenly pressed the no button but that their registrations were not legally valid.

The review also found that many of these individuals were “well above” voting age and likely pressed the incorrect option by mistake. The state is currently remediating these records.

The review further identified about 340 potentially improper voter-registration records from MVC re-entry events dating back to 2016. Some individuals incorrectly attested to eligibility even though they were serving a prison sentence at the time. Those records were referred to county election officials for remediation.

“In just two and a half months, we conducted this review and are taking sweeping action to secure our voter registration processes, and the integrity of our voter rolls, so that New Jerseyans can feel confident about their election system,” Sherrill said.

The errors by the IDEMIA system, first announced last July, occurred between June 2023 and June 2024, when Phil Murphy was governor. Among the thousands of noncitizens that were improperly registered to vote, fewer than 400 cast ballots between 2023 and 2024.

Officials with the Trump administration pointed to the Garden State errors as they pressed Congress over the summer to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, also known as the SAVE America Act.

State Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco said in a statement the newly discovered errors are “more evidence that there were serious weaknesses in New Jersey’s voter registration system.” He added that New Jerseyans “deserve to see the analysis that supports the conclusions reached.”

“It is past time to release that report and give the public the facts,” Bucco said. “We need to stop learning about new problems through piecemeal press releases and start getting real answers with a legislative review that leaves no stone unturned and ensures New Jersey voters can have confidence in the integrity of their elections.”

Bucco’s comments were dismissed by governor spokesperson Stephen Sigmund as “absurd,” citing the insurrection at the Capitol and President Donald Trump’s attempts to change federal voting laws.

“[Trump] is now weaponizing the federal government to try and suppress the votes of millions of people across the country who are rejecting his corruption, endless war in Iran and driving up costs for every American,” Sigmund said. “Gov. Sherrill is focused on identifying and fixing problems that go back as far as a decade, so that New Jersey continues to have free and fair elections.”

MVC implements daily audit, among other reforms

A new daily audit system at the Motor Vehicle Commission will verify every voter-registration record by comparing information stored in the MVC’s database and confirm that each response accurately reflects customer responses, including citizenship status, age and whether the customer chose to register to vote.

The system will flag incomplete or inconsistent records for review and prevent records with missing or conflicting information from being transmitted.

The agency is also making voter registration questions clearer, adding multilingual signage and handheld translation devices at every MVC office and putting voter-registration questions in five languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi and Simplified Chinese.

Senate Republicans are pushing a bill that would constitute a special seven-member Senate committee that would look into the glitches. Bucco and state Sen. Kristin M. Corrado have sponsored a bill that would eliminate automatic voter registration at the MVC, implement voter identification requirements and conduct bi-annual audits to clean up voter rolls.