Noncitizen Ballots Exposed — DOJ Moves In

New Jersey just admitted that a government “software error” put about 6,600 noncitizens on the voter rolls and led to hundreds of illegal ballots being cast.

Story Snapshot

About 6,600 self-identified noncitizens were wrongly registered to vote through New Jersey’s motor vehicle system.
State officials say fewer than 400 of those noncitizens actually cast ballots in New Jersey elections.
The error came from a vendor-run software system that ignored applicants’ answers about citizenship status.
The Trump Department of Justice is now demanding detailed voter data and opening a federal probe into the failure.

Serious registration error puts noncitizens on New Jersey voter rolls

Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, announced that a “serious software error” in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission system wrongly registered about 6,600 people who had said they were not United States citizens.

These registrations happened between June 2023 and June 2024, when applicants were getting driver’s licenses or ID cards and clearly answered “no” to a citizenship question on a keypad. Despite those answers, the system still sent their information into the voter registration database.

Sherrill said a preliminary review shows that fewer than 400 of the wrongly registered noncitizens later voted in New Jersey elections. She also claimed there is “no evidence at this time” that these ballots changed the outcome of any race.

Those noncitizen voters were spread across the state and were registered as Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters, not tied to one party. State officials are now trying to remove these names from the voter rolls and fix the damage.

State response: blame the system, replace the vendor, calm the fallout

Sherrill stressed that the error came from the Motor Vehicle Commission’s technology, not from the people applying, who answered the citizenship question correctly. The affected individuals disclosed that they were not citizens, but the system still treated them as eligible voters and added them to the rolls.

Sherrill said she ordered her chief counsel to investigate how this happened and directed officials to purge anyone mistakenly registered during that year-long window. She also said the new Motor Vehicle Commission administrator has begun replacing IDEMIA, the vendor that ran the faulty registration system.

BALLOTS AND BUGS: A computer glitch in New Jersey allowed hundreds of noncitizens to vote, reigniting the debate over commonsense voter ID laws at the polling place.

"Why would you oppose a final fail-safe measure like voter identification at the polls? This is enormously… pic.twitter.com/AgzQn4Kb9O

— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) July 22, 2026

According to Sherrill’s statement, an independent investigation will look at what went wrong, which elections could be involved, and whether any other registration channels share the same weakness.

The Motor Vehicle Commission chair said the state is already working with a different vendor and expects a new system to launch next year. While the governor is trying to calm fears by saying there is no proof elections were “swayed,” the sheer scale of the error gives election-integrity concerns fresh fuel.

Trump-era Justice Department pushes for data and tougher safeguards

The Trump Department of Justice quickly seized on New Jersey’s disclosure and opened a federal probe into the voter registration breakdown. In a letter to Sherrill, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon demanded unredacted voter data on the roughly 6,600 noncitizens who were improperly registered after telling the Motor Vehicle Commission they were not citizens.

The department asked for full names, birth dates, nationalities, addresses, and registration details for each person, plus voting dates, locations, and any mail ballot signatures for the fewer than 400 who cast ballots.

Federal officials called the known failure “unacceptable” and said they will use it as an added reason to push for stronger proof-of-citizenship rules and better testing of election technology. Security experts have long warned that large voter registration systems can suffer major errors when software is not rigorously tested and vendors are not closely watched.

Past motor-voter problems in other states, including California, have produced tens of thousands of flawed registrations, showing this is not just a New Jersey issue. The Trump administration is now signaling it will not accept vague promises and will demand hard data and accountability.

Why this matters for election integrity and voters

This case confirms what many have warned for years: government-run registration systems can put ineligible people on the rolls without anyone noticing until long after ballots are cast. Here, noncitizens who did nothing wrong still ended up registered and, in hundreds of cases, voting in American elections.

That outcome undermines confidence that only U.S. citizens are deciding policies on spending, borders, and gun rights. It also shows how easy it is for officials to blame “software” instead of fixing deeper oversight failures.

Experts say strong testing of voter registration databases, better audit trails, and tighter controls on how data flows from agencies like motor vehicle departments into election systems are critical to stop these errors.

The New Jersey breakdown underscores the need for simple, common-sense safeguards: real proof of citizenship at registration, regular clean-up of voter rolls, and transparent investigations when things go wrong.

The Trump administration’s push for detailed records and a full probe suggests Washington is finally treating these failures as a serious threat to election integrity, not just a minor glitch.