Politics
House panel seeks New Jersey records on voter-registration glitch before midterms
A congressional subcommittee chaired by Rep. Jeff Van Drew subpoenaed records from Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration about a state system error that improperly registered thousands of noncitizens. State officials say about 340 noncitizens cast ballots, while an independent investigation into the glitch continues.
A House Judiciary subcommittee led by U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew has subpoenaed records from New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration as it investigates how a state computer glitch improperly registered thousands of noncitizens to vote.
The subpoena was issued Wednesday, 13 days before the midterm elections. The committee is seeking information about a Motor Vehicle Commission error that resulted in 6,600 noncitizens being added to voter rolls between June 2023 and June 2024, according to Sherrill’s administration. The state says about 340 noncitizens cast ballots.
Sherrill said the administration has removed thousands of improperly registered people from the rolls and that the investigation into how the error occurred is ongoing. She has said a computer software problem was to blame and criticized the prior administration for failing to catch and resolve it sooner.
Van Drew, a South Jersey Republican who chairs the subcommittee, has accused the administration of withholding information. He has called the registration error a major failure of election safeguards and suggested it could have involved deliberate conduct. The administration has provided some records but has not met all of the committee’s demands, according to Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics.
Sherrill has said she is concerned that turning over personal information about noncitizens could expose them to scrutiny from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Rasmussen said the governor’s concern is that people who mistakenly registered could face detention or deportation.
In a statement, Sherrill accused Republicans of using the issue for political advantage shortly before the election, rather than focusing on election security or issues such as rising prices.
The dispute over responsibility remains unresolved. Sherrill initially blamed IDEMIA, the company whose software is used by the Motor Vehicle Commission. IDEMIA denied responsibility, saying the state was responsible for checking voter eligibility. A separate investigation led by former New Jersey Attorney General Jeff Chiesa is underway. A spokesman for former Gov. Phil Murphy has said Murphy did not know about the problem and supports the investigation.
New Jersey has more than 6 million registered voters, Rasmussen said, and between 2 million and 4 million typically vote in an election, depending on the year. He said even a few hundred improper votes should not be acceptable, but would not have changed the outcome of an election. Noncitizen voting has become a focus of national political debate, though fact-checking analyses have found it to be extremely rare.