New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Wednesday that a broader review of voter-registration procedures at the Motor Vehicle Commission uncovered approximately 1,090 additional records requiring correction or further investigation.
The governor stressed that neither of the newly identified issues involved noncitizens.
The review found approximately 750 records affected by the same IDEMIA software problem that operated between June 2023 and June 2024. In these cases, customers answered “no” to an age-eligibility question on the MVC PIN pad, but their information was still forwarded for voter registration.
According to the administration, the dates of birth on the records showed that all of those individuals were actually old enough to vote, and no underage person voted because of the error. Officials said many appear simply to have pressed the wrong button. However, because the registrations were generated after a negative eligibility response, the state considers them legally invalid and is reviewing or correcting the records.
Of those roughly 750 records, about 380 people had no other registration and did not vote, while approximately 320 had other potentially valid registrations and did vote. Another 50 were registered solely because of the faulty process and later voted. Their cases are being referred to county election officials for review.
Second Issue Dates Back to 2016
The review also uncovered approximately 340 potentially improper voter-registration records connected to MVC re-entry events for incarcerated individuals, with some cases dating back to 2016.
According to the administration, some individuals attested that they were eligible to register even though they were still serving sentences for indictable offenses at the time. Those records will now be individually reviewed by county election officials to determine whether they should be deleted.
Separately, the state identified about 60 people who are currently incarcerated and is forwarding those names to counties through the normal voter-roll maintenance process.
Different From Earlier Noncitizen Registration Error
The new findings are separate from the much larger MVC software error disclosed earlier this year.
In July, Sherrill announced that approximately 6,600 people who had indicated that they were not U.S. citizens were nevertheless registered to vote because of a software problem between June 2023 and June 2024.
The administration later said approximately 340 people who were newly registered because of that error voted, while thousands of affected registrations were deleted or placed under further review.
Wednesday’s announcement therefore expands the scope of the state’s investigation into MVC voter-registration procedures, but the governor emphasized that the two newly identified categories do not involve citizenship-status problems.
New Safeguards at the MVC
Sherrill also announced several changes intended to prevent similar problems.
The MVC is implementing a daily automated audit comparing customer responses with voter-registration records before those records are transmitted for processing. Records containing inconsistent or incomplete information will be flagged for manual review.
The agency is also expanding voter-registration questions into five languages — English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi and Simplified Chinese — while adding translation devices capable of assisting customers in more than 80 languages.
The MVC is also developing an additional PIN-pad question at re-entry events requiring applicants to confirm that they are not currently incarcerated for an indictable offense.
Sherrill said the investigation remains ongoing and that additional problems will be addressed if they are discovered.
Sources: Office of Gov. Mikie Sherrill; New Jersey Globe; CBS News; New Jersey Monitor
By NJ RADAR Team