While Americans clamor for election integrity—demanding the Senate pass the SAVE America Act—a voting scandal struck New Jersey that spurred a media feeding frenzy.
After Democratic Governor Mikie Sherrill took the stage to get ahead of explosive revelations that it not only registered 6,600 non-citizens but 400 of them actually voted, she proffered a few measly explanations: It happened under former Gov. Phil Murphy and it was due to a software “glitch.”
“Last week I learned that a serious software error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System led to the registration of roughly 6,600 people who indicated that they were not U.S. citizens between June 2023 and June 2024,” Sherrill said Tuesday. “These individuals answered ‘no’ when asked on a keypad whether they were a U.S. citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway.”
About that. New Jersey’s voter registration controversy took a dramatic turn Wednesday when the technology company blamed for the state’s registration fiasco shot down Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s explanation—and cast the blame on the state’s lax voter registration laws.
French technology company IDEMIA, which New Jersey blamed for the “software error,” insists its system accurately recorded applicants’ answers and that those answers were available to state officials.
“The 6,600 records submitted to the Motor Vehicle Commission and Division of Elections contained correct information according to the design specifications as set out by the state,” IDEMIA spokeswoman Lisa Shoemaker told the New York Post. “All 6,600 individuals indicated ‘Yes’ to wanting to register to vote and ‘NO’ to being a US Citizen.”
She added, “This information was recorded correctly and always available.”
The most consequential statement: “At no point was a noncitizen ever marked as a citizen in the database.”
If IDEMIA’s account is accurate, it raises obvious questions about what happened after the data left the company’s system.
“IDEMIA does not control or manage voter enrollment, our role is simply to collect self-reported citizenship and interest data,” Shoemaker explained.
She then posed the question: “This leads to more questions—if the Division of Elections had missing information which is required to register in the State of New Jersey, did the Division of Elections approve these individuals be added to the Voter Rolls.”
New Jersey officials immediately disputed IDEMIA’s account.
“No, that is not correct,” a state official told the Post. “Anytime somebody answers ‘no’ to the citizenship question, that record should not be transmitted to the Division of Elections.”
The irony is heightened by Sherrill’s bizarre dispute of President Trump’s call for election integrity, which was based on declassified intelligence—much of it from the Trump administration.
“Let me be clear, Donald Trump has zero credibility on election integrity,” she said.
It looks like Sherrill is the one with “zero credibility” on this issue, since her deflection of blame for the illegal voters onto a software company doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
The conflicting explanations leave investigators with two very different possibilities. Either the Motor Vehicle Commission’s software improperly transmitted records that never should have reached election officials, or election officials received records identifying applicants as non-citizens and those individuals were nevertheless added to the voter rolls.
The controversy has quickly become a focal point in the national debate over election integrity.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have pointed to the New Jersey case as evidence that stronger safeguards are needed to prevent non-citizens from being registered to vote.
Trump has repeatedly urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship before registering to vote in federal elections.
Sen. Mike Lee summarized that argument in a post on X.
“Software doesn’t register noncitizens to vote. People do.”
He continued, “The fact that this happened—with or without software playing a role—can neither be ignored by Congress nor dismissed as a simple, garden-variety computer glitch.”
“We need the SAVE America Act to stop this from happening.”
The Justice Department has also moved quickly, demanding records from New Jersey, including the identities of those who were improperly registered, while citing the incident in its ongoing lawsuit seeking access to the state’s voter registration records.
Sherrill concluded her spiel by pledging, “New Jerseyans should have confidence that every eligible citizen can vote, every lawful vote will be counted, and every reasonable step will be taken to protect the integrity of our elections.”
This misses the point. It is one thing to say that “every lawful vote” counts, but it is quite another to ensure that unlawful votes don’t count. It doesn’t take a math genius to figure out that this nullifies lawful votes and disenfranchises qualified voters.
The New Jersey Governor essentially told on herself by emphasizing the former rather than the latter. This is at the heart of the “fake controversy” over election integrity, which should not be a partisan matter.
Ask yourself: Why is it that every single Democrat is against voter IDs?
If this is the “Democratic” Party, why isn’t it heeding the will of the people and adopting election security measures supported by over 80% of the American public?
Why is it fighting the SAVE America Act—complete with voter IDs, paper ballots, and an end to mass mail-in voting?
Democratic leaders from Kamala Harris to Nancy Pelosi to Bernie Sanders to Adam Schiff used to openly support such measures.
Now, Democrats refuse to do anything to strengthen election integrity.
Democrats obviously think Third-World voting problems are “a bug and not a feature.”
Please check Oregon. We have not had a Republican Governor since we started all mail in voting!
LIE, CHEAT AND STEAL....THAT'S THE DEMOCRATS PLAYBOOK....