New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Tuesday rejected a Department of Justice demand for information on noncitizens who were added to the state’s voter rolls, citing federal privacy laws.
The request came from Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon after Sherrill claimed last week that a supposed software error at the Motor Vehicles Commission under former Gov. Phil Murphy allowed roughly 6,600 noncitizen registrations between June 2023 and June 2024. The Department of Homeland Security has claimed a significantly higher figure, stating on July 16 that it identified 35,152 noncitizens registered to vote in New Jersey.
The DOJ sought full names, dates of birth, nationalities, residential addresses, registration details, and information on the elections in which the ballots were cast. Dhillon had given the state a one-week deadline, stressing that “not a single American vote should be diluted.”
Sherrill said the request had no legal basis and that she would protect New Jerseyans’ personally identifiable information.
The contractor at the center of the issue, IDEMIA, has rejected Sherrill’s claim of a software glitch. Company spokeswoman Lisa Shoemaker said there was “no glitch or software error,” stating that the system correctly recorded applicants answering “no” to U.S. citizenship and that the data was always available to the Motor Vehicle Commission. IDEMIA maintains the problem occurred when the state itself transmitted noncitizen information to election officials.
