New Jersey voter registration errors fuel Trump's election law crusade

A software glitch in New Jersey has led to the erroneous registration of 6,600 non-citizens for voting, with approximately 400 of them casting ballots. This incident, which occurred prior to the current administration's tenure, has become a focal point in the debate over election integrity in the United States.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill disclosed that the error stemmed from the state's automatic voter registration system, implemented in 2018. This system registers individuals applying for driver's licenses or state IDs unless they opt out. While 6,600 non-citizens were registered, only about 400 are confirmed to have voted. This is a minuscule number compared to the 6.6 million registered voters in the state.

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6,600 people who are not citizens of the United States were registered to vote.

Despite the small scale of the issue, the Trump administration has seized upon the New Jersey incident to bolster its arguments for tightening voting laws. However, election experts, such as David Becker from the Center for Election Innovation and Research, estimate that the votes cast due to these erroneous registrations would amount to only about 0.009% of all votes cast in New Jersey's 2024 general election. This context highlights the limited impact of the error on overall election outcomes.

While administrative errors in voter registration are acknowledged to happen occasionally, they are described as rare and affecting a small percentage of voters. Data from Reuters indicates only 129 federal criminal cases related to non-citizen voting in the past thirty years, many stemming from misunderstandings. The article also notes that while non-citizen voting in federal elections has been illegal for a century, some states permit non-citizens to vote in local elections.

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around 0.009 percent of all votes cast in New Jersey's 2024 general election.