New Jersey Points Noncitizens Wrongly Registered to Vote Toward State-Funded Immigration Lawyers

What's new since the July 21 disclosure

Since Gov. Mikie Sherrill's July 21 press conference revealing that roughly 6,600 noncitizens ended up on New Jersey's voter rolls through a Motor Vehicle Commission software error, her administration has taken a step that's now drawing fresh fire: a state FAQ website for the affected individuals links out to New Jersey's Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative, a program Sherrill expanded to more than $20 million in funding back in June, according to New Jersey 101.5.

The MVC error ran from June 2023 to June 2024. People applying for driver's licenses or state ID told the agency directly they weren't citizens, but a vendor system routed them into voter registration anyway. Sherrill confirmed Tuesday that at least 4,500 of the roughly 6,600 flagged individuals have been verified as noncitizens, per New Jersey 101.5. Nearly 400 of them cast ballots between June 2023 and June 2024, according to ZeroHedge.

Whose fault is it

Sherrill has laid the blame on her software vendor, IDEMIA. "This entire situation is unacceptable," she said Tuesday, according to ZeroHedge. "It's unacceptable that the vendor released software with such a glaring error, it's unacceptable that the MVC took a year to get this issue fixed and it's unacceptable that no one in the previous administration brought this to light, demanded accountability or took action when it happened years ago."

IDEMIA disputes that framing. In a statement carried by ZeroHedge, the company said it has worked with the MVC for more than 40 years to pass along voter registration interest indicated by license applicants, but that New Jersey's own Division of Elections was responsible for actually validating and adjudicating each registration. The MVC is switching vendors as a result.

The legal aid link, and what it actually is

The state's FAQ site for the 6,600 affected people links to information about the DDDI, the same program Sherrill doubled to $20 million in June for immigration detention and deportation defense generally, according to New Jersey 101.5. State Assembly Republicans pounced, saying it proves "there's one standard for taxpayers and another standard for lawbreakers," and noting the same state "has refused for years to give cost-of-living adjustments to retired law enforcement officers, teachers, and state workers living on fixed pensions," per a statement carried by both New Jersey 101.5 and Save Jersey.

Critics are right that the timing looks bad and that New Jersey has separately cut aid to 167 school districts, according to Save Jersey. A state government expanded a general immigration-legal-aid program by $20 million in the same window it was managing a voter registration scandal, and then pointed people caught up in that scandal toward that same fund.

But a more detailed account from Explore New Jersey complicates the sharpest version of the story—the claim that Sherrill created a dedicated legal-defense program specifically for the 6,600 noncitizen voters. According to that outlet, no attorneys have been formally assigned to represent any of the 6,600 people specifically over their voter registration status. The DDDI link on the FAQ page directs people to general immigration legal aid that already existed and was already expanded in June, not a bespoke program built around the voter rolls issue. Whether that distinction matters to taxpayers footing the $20 million bill is a fair question either way.

The bigger fight nobody's headline is about

The more consequential development sits underneath the legal-aid controversy: the U.S. Department of Justice demanded New Jersey turn over full names, birth dates, and home addresses of all 6,600 affected people. Sherrill refused, citing state and federal privacy law, according to Explore New Jersey. A federal district judge sided with the state, ruling DOJ lacked legal authority to compel New Jersey to hand over unredacted records.

That ruling is a genuine legal outcome with implications beyond New Jersey, touching on how far federal immigration enforcement can reach into state voter-roll data. It's gotten far less attention than the lawyer-funding story.

The unresolved numbers problem

Meanwhile, a real discrepancy remains unexplained. The Department of Homeland Security reported this month that roughly 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote across California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada combined, with New Jersey accounting for 35,152 of those registrations, according to ZeroHedge. That's more than five times Sherrill's acknowledged 6,600 figure. DHS hasn't publicly detailed the methodology behind its larger number, and no source here confirms which figure is accurate. That gap, not the legal-aid FAQ page, is the open question state election officials haven't answered.

Sherrill has said the state won't pursue criminal cases against the wrongly registered individuals, calling that prosecution the "utmost hypocrisy" given the error was the state's own doing, according to New Jersey 101.5. No charges have been filed against any of the 6,600 individuals, and no state or federal investigation into criminal wrongdoing by those voters has been announced.