It's not just New Jersey, by the way, where non-citizens are getting onto the voter rolls. The only thing distinctive about New Jersey is that it has been in the news lately, because Mikie Sherrill could no longer cover all of it up.
Some states are much worse than others, of course, but there are so many loopholes in the voter registration system that even noncitizens who didn't think they were registering to vote wind up on the rolls.
Yet the voter registration system in New Jersey, and not only did they find that the system is filled with loopholes and vulnerabilities, but that it was an open secret—pretty much everybody knew it.
‘It’s the honor system’: New Jersey's noncitizen voter registration brings private worries into the open https://t.co/XvMykARoJp
— POLITICO (@politico) July 30, 2026
Like so many uncomfortable facts, it's actually not that hard to piece the truth together if you are interested in doing so and willing to take a bit of time. Unfortunately, we have to outsource the job to others because we all have lives to lead, and in most cases, the people we have outsourced it to are partisans pretending to be objective.
The subhead to POLITICO's story is quite apt: 'Democrats and Republicans agree the registration system is a mess.' Of course they all know that, but have done zip to fix it. You have to wonder why.
So what's the problem?
In May, a bipartisan duo of New Jersey state senators introduced a simple piece of legislation that got little public attention.
It would add one sentence to the state’s automatic voter registration law to make sure someone who indicates they aren’t a U.S. citizen won’t be prompted to register to vote.
The bill turned out to be extremely prescient.
That’s because Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed last week that a “software error” at the Motor Vehicles Commission led to roughly 6,600 noncitizens getting added to the state’s voter rolls. About 400 of them voted, she said.
Her disclosure set off a political uproar that’s resonated well beyond New Jersey, feeding into the Trump administration’s push for voter restrictions and setting up a legal battle with the Department of Justice.
But it also exposed an open secret about New Jersey’s so-called motor voter law that officials and political operatives have known for years: There’s little to stop noncitizens from registering to vote if they want to, or even by mistake. And election officials and campaign consultants from both parties believe that the number of noncitizens being added to the voter rolls is significantly higher than the 6,600 Sherrill cited — because the state has been automatically registering drivers since 2018, and her figure covers only June 2023 to June 2024.
“It’s the honor system,” said Hunterdon County Board of Elections Administrator Beth Thompson, who also leads the New Jersey Association of Election Officials.
You see the issue? People are automatically registered to vote unless they affirmatively say they don't want to be. Which, to be fair, was always the eventual goal of motor-voter laws in the first place: cram the voter rolls with people who weren't inclined enough to participate in politics to get registered, and then allow for organized efforts to cajole them to the polls.
🚨 WOW. POLITICO just reported this bombshell on New Jersey, the "conspiracy theorists" are RIGHT AGAIN
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 2, 2026
"There’s little to stop noncitizens from registering to vote if they want to, or even by mistake."
"And election officials and campaign consultants from both parties believe… pic.twitter.com/14BFrWFOzQ
🚨 WOW. POLITICO just reported this bombshell on New Jersey, the "conspiracy theorists" are RIGHT AGAIN
"There’s little to stop noncitizens from registering to vote if they want to, or even by mistake."
"And election officials and campaign consultants from both parties believe that the number of noncitizens being added to the voter rolls is significantly higher than the 6,600 Sherrill cited — because the state has been automatically registering drivers since 2018, and her figure covers only June 2023 to June 2024." 🤯
SAVE America Act can't be passed soon enough!
Every state must turn over its voter rolls NOW.
Democrats understood that getting non-motivated voters would present an opportunity for them because Democrats have large, organized networks in unions, "community organizers," NGOs, and now vote harvesters to collect votes. And now, with many states or localities automatically sending out ballots whether you request them or not, there are lots of ballots to collect and "vote" for the people who don't care or who are willing to hand that ballot over for a few bucks.
Even before Sherrill’s announcement, county elections officials reported noncitizens who were mistakenly registered to vote reaching out to them, concerned that their registration could get them in trouble or imperil their immigration or pending citizenship status. The Republican State Committee conducted a review that found hundreds of noncitizens had requested removal of their names from the voter rolls after finding out they had been registered to vote.
Thompson suspects that in many of those cases, a language barrier may have been responsible. While the written driver’s license test is offered in 13 languages, she said the pin pad that prompts those people to register to vote only offers English and Spanish.
The purpose of a system is what it does, not what it claims to do. And what this system does is register a lot of ineligible people to vote—and Sherrill's 6000+/- number is a grotesque understatement. Homeland Security says it is closer to 35,000 illegal voters.
The actual number released by Homeland Security of NONCITIZENS registered to vote in New Jersey is 35,152 compared to the previously reported 6,600.
— The SCIF (@TheSCIF) August 2, 2026
New Jersey has an open secret that political operatives have known and taken advantage of for years, which allows NONCITIZENS to… pic.twitter.com/wTyVjaSRfK
The actual number released by Homeland Security of NONCITIZENS registered to vote in New Jersey is 35,152 compared to the previously reported 6,600.
New Jersey has an open secret that political operatives have known and taken advantage of for years, which allows NONCITIZENS to get registered to voter through a law called the "Motor Voter Law."
The DMV is playing a significant role registering noncitizens to vote, especially through the ERIC system associated with DMVs, which Soros himself has significant ties to as well as the Democrat Party.
New Jersey is one of a large number of states that are refusing to turn over their voter rolls to the federal government to allow eligibility checks, because of course it is. As you can guess, Republican-leaning states have been cooperating, and Democrat-leaning states are not, broadly speaking.
In principle, I think the states have a case for asserting they are not required to do so—the Constitution gives states broad powers to run elections, which is why a few jurisdictions even allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. But the reluctance is clearly connected to the fact that they don't want to clean their voter rolls. Many of these states leave dead people on the rolls, have people registered at multiple addresses, and still maintain registration for people who have left the state.
And they refuse to clean those rolls. Connect that to the widespread absentee voting, or the places that automatically send out ballots to "voters" on the rolls, and you have an awful lot of ballots that cannot be connected to actual people eligible to vote.
All this is an open secret, of course, and not just in New Jersey.
Those of us with suspicious minds believe that fraud is widespread, using this loophole, but even if it isn't, you have to wonder why people who are quite well aware of these problems refuse to do anything about them.
Their claim is this: if you clean up the rolls, you may accidentally remove an eligible voter (which is easily remedied in any case), never looking at the other side of the equation: if you don't, eligible voters will have their votes canceled out by ineligible voters who cast ballots.
Given that I am a cynic, I think they like the loophole for pretty obvious reasons.
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