Six thousand six hundred people who marked "NO" to being a U.S. citizen on their driver's license applications were registered to vote in New Jersey anyway. Four hundred of them cast ballots.
Governor Mikie Sherrill called it a software error. She also made sure, three separate times in her statement, to note that it happened before she took office.
She's right about that. The registrations ran from June 2023 to June 2024 — nearly three years before Sherrill was sworn in, and squarely on the watch of her predecessor, Governor Phil Murphy. Two Democrats. One broken system. And New Jersey's solution is to fire the tech company.
The tech company isn't going quietly.
IDEMIA, the French technology firm that has run New Jersey's Motor Vehicle Commission registration system for more than 40 years, issued a statement that directly contradicts Sherrill's "glitch" narrative. "The 6,600 records submitted to the MVC and Division of Elections contained correct information according to the design specifications as set out by the state," an IDEMIA spokesperson said. "All 6,600 individuals indicated 'Yes' to wanting to register to vote and 'NO' to being a US Citizen."
IDEMIA also made clear who bears responsibility for what came next: "The voter registration information is transmitted to the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, which is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility."
So the system recorded what the applicants entered. It transmitted exactly what New Jersey's specifications required. Then the state's own Division of Elections enrolled them.
Here's how the system works. Applications use keypads. Applicants self-report their citizenship status. Six thousand six hundred people answered "No" to citizenship and "Yes" to voter registration on the same form. The software transmitted both answers to the Division of Elections. The Division of Elections registered them.
The problem was never in the code. The problem was in whatever process was supposed to catch non-citizens before they hit the voter rolls — a process that apparently New Jersey never required IDEMIA to build, because New Jersey never asked for it.
Cutting loose a 40-year vendor after they went on record explaining the system worked as designed is a creative interpretation of accountability. It's also a good way to change the subject.
Assembly Minority Leader John DiMaio said the quiet part out loud: "Democrats failing to secure elections. If Democrats would embrace voter ID, these failures would have been corrected."
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon called 400 non-citizen ballots what they are: "Unacceptable and illegal."
And the White House connected it to the federal fix. "This latest incident underscores the absolute necessity of the SAVE America Act," said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson. The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship to register to vote — a standard Mexico, France, and India already apply to their own citizens.
Governor Sherrill called it a glitch. The company that built the system calls it design specifications. And the governor who presided over the registration period has been gone long enough that his name barely comes up.