New Jersey’s Voter Roll Disaster Proves Republicans Right About Election Security

Here’s what should terrify every American regardless of party affiliation. New Jersey just admitted that 6,600 noncitizens ended up on voter rolls because of a “software error” at the DMV. And now state officials are stonewalling the Republican National Committee’s attempts to figure out exactly how this happened.

You know what’s remarkable? Republicans have been saying for years that Motor Voter laws create dangerous vulnerabilities when citizenship isn’t independently verified. Democrats called it voter suppression rhetoric, fear mongering, conspiracy theory nonsense. Now those same Democrats are scrambling to explain how thousands of ineligible voters got registered under their watch.

The RNC isn’t playing games anymore. Chairman Joe Gruters sent formal National Voter Registration Act violation notices to New Jersey’s secretary of state and election officials in six counties. The message is simple: hand over the records by September 15 or face litigation. This includes documents related to noncitizen removals, citizenship verification efforts, and general voter roll maintenance activities. Basic stuff that should already be transparent.

Democratic Governor Mikie Sherrill revealed the problem herself, though she’s quick to blame a technical error that supposedly occurred before she took office. The software glitch at the Motor Vehicle Commission improperly registered approximately 6,600 people between June 2023 and June 2024. Her administration removed about 5,100 people who had no separate registration or attestation of eligibility. Another 1,450 registrations got changed to rejected status pending further review.

But here’s where it gets worse. Roughly 340 people who were newly registered because of this error actually voted. The state also identified about 220 people affected by the error who voted but may have had previous registrations indicating they were validly registered. May have been. That’s reassuring.

Chuck DeVore points out something critical that mainstream outlets conveniently ignore. Motor Voter laws fundamentally compromise election integrity when citizenship verification isn’t built into the system as an independent check. We’re not talking about theoretical vulnerabilities anymore. We’re looking at hard evidence that the system failed on a massive scale in one of America’s most densely populated states.

Bergen County records alone identified 134 noncitizens removed from voter rolls between January 2023 and August 2026. Of those, 91 registrations were linked directly to the Motor Vehicle Commission. That’s not a software glitch. That’s a systemic problem with how the state handles voter registration at the DMV.

Sherrill’s response tells you everything about where Democrats stand on this issue. Instead of cooperating fully and transparently, she’s accusing the Trump administration of seeking greater federal control over state voter rolls. She called federal efforts to obtain nonpublic voter information a “phishing expedition.” That’s rich. When Republicans ask for accountability and verification, it’s suddenly federal overreach.

This matters beyond New Jersey. Every state using Motor Voter registration without robust citizenship verification faces the same risk. How many other states have thousands of noncitizens sitting on voter rolls right now? How many have voted in previous elections? These aren’t abstract questions about democratic theory. They’re practical questions about whether our elections actually reflect the will of American citizens.

The RNC is doing exactly what election integrity advocates should do. They’re using legal tools to demand transparency and accountability. They’re forcing officials to explain how this happened and what safeguards exist to prevent it from happening again. And they’re putting everyone on notice that federal law requires maintaining accurate voter rolls.

Democrats can’t have it both ways. You can’t simultaneously claim that election integrity concerns are baseless while admitting that thousands of ineligible voters got registered under your systems. Either election security matters or it doesn’t.

Related: Another Preventable Death Thanks to Catch and Release Immigration Policy