(The Center Square) — Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said the state's election system is "free, fair, and secure" ahead of the midterm elections, despite an ongoing investigation that revealed state prisoners — along with thousands of non-citizens — were illegally registered to vote.
In a statement on Wednesday, Sherrill provided an update on the two-month-long investigation. She said while the review remains ongoing, her administration is "taking sweeping action" to "secure the voter registration processes and the integrity of our voter rolls, so that New Jerseyans can feel confident about their election system."
Sherrill set the review and identified other issues with the state's voter registration system, not related to non-citizens voting. That included 750 individuals who had selected "no" in the voter registration age-eligibility process but were still registered to vote. The review determined that no underage individuals voted and that the applicants likely made a mistake, she said.
Additionally, the review found that hundreds of individuals had incorrectly attested to eligibility even though they were "currently serving a sentence of incarceration for an indictable offense."
Approximately 340 individuals were improperly registered at the time and require individual review to determine whether deletion is appropriate. Another 60 individuals were identified as currently incarcerated.
Sherrill said those voter registration records are being referred to county election officials for remediation.
"The review showed that this issue had gone undetected and unaddressed, with some going as far back as a decade," Sherill said. "My Administration found them and moved immediately to fix them."
New Jersey's investigation, unveiled in mid-July, found that between June 2023 and 2024 about 6,600 non-citizens were erroneously registered to vote by the state Motor Vehicle Commission's software system when they were applying for state drivers' licenses or identification.
At least 400 of those non-citizens cast ballots in elections during those years, according to the Sherrill administration.
Sherrill has blamed a "software glitch" by Idemia, a France-based technology company that operates the motor vehicle registration system, that occurred under then-Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat who left office in January.
But the company has pushed back on those claims, saying it used written specifications provided by the Murphy administration and that New Jersey's Division of Elections was responsible for verifying voting eligibility.
The state Division of Elections has removed more than 5,100 individuals who were registered, while others have been referred to local election clerks for removal, Sherrill said in a previous update.
New Jersey Republicans are calling for a special legislative commission to look into the integrity of the state's voting system in the wake of the scandal. They've also filed a bill that would eliminate the state's automatic voter registration system.
But Sherrill has criticized Republicans and President Donald Trump, accusing his administration of trying to "weaponize" the incident to cast doubt on the upcoming midterm elections. She said her review has left "no stone unturned" and vowed to continue with the investigation.
"I promised New Jerseyans that we would get to the bottom of this issue and be transparent every step of the way," Sherrill, a first-term Democrat, said in a statement. "That is exactly what I will continue to do. Our investigation is ongoing, we will follow the facts wherever they lead, fix the problems we inherited, do it the right way, and hold those responsible accountable."
