SAVE Act Proponents Try to Capitalize on New Jersey Voter Roll Snafu
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) disclosed on Tuesday that her state had erroneously registered about 6,600 noncitizens to vote. While this appears to be a boon to Donald Trump in his effort to pass the SAVE Act, a closer look at what happened tells a different story.
Proponents of a voter suppression law that Donald Trump wants Congress to pass ahead of the midterms are champing at the bit following New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s (D) announcement on Tuesday that a software error led to the erroneous voter registration of more than 6,000 noncitizens from June 2023 to June 2024. However, a closer look at what transpired shows that nothing in the SAVE Act would have prevented this glitch and, in fact, likely would have made things worse.
That being said, it’s not good that this happened at all, and Sherrill knows it.
“I am appalled by the reckless failures that allowed this to happen and the lack of transparency shown by those in charge at the time. This failure didn’t occur under my watch, but accountability starts now,” said the governor, who was elected last November and assumed office at the start of the year. “I am taking action to prevent anything like it from occurring in the future and make sure those responsible are held accountable.”
So, what did happen, and how is it related to Trump’s unfounded allegations that millions of noncitizens voted against him in 2020?
As for the first part of that question, Sherrill said that a software error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission caused about 6,600 people who said they weren’t US citizens to be registered to vote. She added that, according to a “preliminary analysis,” fewer than 400 of them did cast a ballot in a subsequent election.
This means that, in the vast majority of cases, there is no wrongdoing on the part of the noncitizens. You don’t have to be a citizen to get a driver’s license, and they checked a box indicating that they weren’t Americans.
There is nothing in the SAVE Act that would have prevented this. In fact, it is possible that people who did nothing wrong would have faced some sort of prosecution.
It’s a bit different for the 400 people who did vote. That is a felony. And while they weren’t at fault for being registered erroneously, they then voted, and the circumstances around how that happened must be investigated.
In the few known cases of noncitizens voting, ignorance is more often to blame than malice. For example, a green card holder may believe that they are allowed to participate in an election when they are not. Or someone gets sent a ballot in error and assumes that means they can complete and return it.
It’s important to find out what happened in these cases.
Of course, Republicans have little interest in doing that. They just want to use this example to show that the SAVE Act and other measures Trump wants to take to “nationalize elections” are necessary.
Sherrill was cognizant that this would happen and sought to preempt it.
“As the Trump Administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring we protect our elections,” she stated. “Let me be clear: Donald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity. For more than ten years, he has worked to undermine Americans’ faith in our elections by spreading lies about legitimate election results, attempting to overturn a free and fair election, encouraging an attack on our Capitol when he couldn’t accept the will of the voters, and defunding election security at the federal level.”
All of this is undoubtedly true.
In addition, it bears remembering that New Jersey has more than 6.5 million registered voters, so those 400 votes that were cast in elections since June of 2022 (and there have been at least three of those in the Garden State) is hardly evidence of the widespread “voter fraud” that Trump and his allies pretend is taking place.
Perhaps that is why Elon Musk, one of the most prominent election deniers, took some time off from posting white nationalist content on his social media site X to claim, without providing any kind of proof, that the actual number is “may be as much as 1,000x higher.”
Trump predictably also weighed in on his website.
“35,152 is the new number just released by Homeland Security of non-citizens registered to vote in New Jersey,” he wrote. “These are just the ones that got caught. The real numbers will prove to be many times this amount.”
As we have noted before, if the administration had evidence that massive (or even tiny) numbers of noncitizens voted, then it would surely prosecute them, if only to “prove” Trump’s Big Lie.
All that being said, the number of ineligible people voting should be zero. Fortunately, based on all available audits and investigations, including those conducted by Republican-led states and conservative groups, the actual figure is pretty close to that.
Which is why we need to understand what happened in this case.
And that is how things should be. Instead of vague accusations that are never backed up in any way, here is a real example of how the system should work when a problem is detected.
For her part, Sherrill made it clear what she believes the difference is between her and the Trump administration.
“When we find a problem, we don’t hide it, deny it, or invent conspiracies,” she said. “We investigate it, we fix it, and we tell the public.”
