Holy smokes, this is a giggle.
Ed had the story first thing yesterday, complete with a totally appropriate title:
NJ Gov: That Funny Thing That Never Happens Happened Again at the DMV, 6600 Times
New Jersey Governor 'Jersey' Mikie Sherrill had walked to a podium for a press conference and dropped what appeared at first to be a stunning acknowledgment - that 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote in the state because of a software 'glitch.' Even though these ineligible-to-vote types had checked the correct 'not-a-citizen' box, the governor said, the software foul-up recorded them as being citizens. Eventually, several hundred of them did pull levers in NJ elections.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill is blaming a software glitch in the state's motor vehicle system for accidentally registering 6,660 noncitizens to vote.
She further acknowledged Tuesday as many as 400 of those foreigners voted in recent election despite a legal ban on foreigners voting in federal elections.
Now, the governor's announcement led to some snickering about the press conference being more of a CYA exercise, as it hadn't been a week yet that she and other blue states officials had sneered at President Trump's election integrity speech.
Inquiring and cynical minds wanted to know what sort of ballot security disaster the governor was actually getting out ahead of with this 'the software did it, but I wasn't governor yet' performance.
...The admission came less than a week after President Donald Trump gave a primetime address presenting evidence of election vulnerabilities, including hundreds of thousands of noncitizens who made it on voter rolls, spy agency concerns about voting machine security and a Chinese effort to obtain American voter data.
Sherrill was among those Democrats to deride the speech. But on Tuesday she had to reverse course and acknowledge the problem with noncitizens registering and voting in her state.
The governor used terms like 'reckless,' 'transparency,' 'Trump's weaponization,' and 'WASN'T ME' [okay - she didn't put it exactly that way so much].
MY GOSH: New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill was forced to admit that her state registered roughly 6,600 non-citizens to vote — blaming it on a “serious software error” when the foreigners were obtaining driver’s licenses and identification cards.
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) July 21, 2026
“Our preliminary analysis shows… pic.twitter.com/tycK8D3tDL
But the biggest, baddest scapegoat was the 'software' company, the serious error in their programming, and everyone ran with it.
Everyone, that is, except the software company.
IDEMIA, the company whose glitch is accused of being the culprit, came out this morning with a 'not so fast' that could cause a whole lot of issues for Mikie Sherrill and the state's voter registration rolls.
Their statement this morning clarifies what role their software plays, and, ho, boy.
🚨 HOLY CRAP! The identity services provider New Jersey uses at the DMV is FIRING BACK at Gov. Sherrill, saying the NJ DIVISION OF ELECTIONS were the ones who registered 6,600 foreign voters
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) July 22, 2026
This was NOT a “software error.” This is a SCANDAL.
“IDEMIA's role is to transmit… pic.twitter.com/BvT9HCmlfB
..."IDEMIA's role is to transmit information through the motor vehicle system. The voter registration information is transmitted to the New Jersey Department of State, Division of Elections, which is ultimately responsible for verifying eligibility to vote.
Information submitted by IDEMIA must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections.”
So the Division of Elections MANUALLY APPROVED over SIX THOUSAND foreigners to vote. They were not automatically registered by the software provider as the governor claimed.
According to the release, all that their program does is transmit voter registration info to the NJ State Division of Elections, which is where that information is supposed to be verified for eligibility. IDEMIA verifies nothing - they simply are the vehicle that passes the information to the next stop in the chain.
They assert that they don't 'register' anyone.
YOICKS
So many questions.
Wait, so it may not have been a “software error”?
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) July 22, 2026
If true - a story that should have major legs already… Suddenly could become one of the bigger scandals of the year.
The question is… Where else are these “errors” occurring? https://t.co/UdW6Ksg9df
Where else? Well, that question leads to two sides of the story, one of which leans towards IDEMIA's statement this morning being a CYA exercise in its own right, because software from the French (!) biometrics and identity solutions international conglomerate permeates the voting and driver's license registration systems of nearly the entire country.
IDEMIA works with ~35–36 states (issuing ~70% of U.S. driver’s licenses/IDs).
— Steve Robinson (@SteveRob) July 22, 2026
Those include California and Maine (long-term contracts), and New York.
So who is responsible for glitches that could allow non-citizens to vote in a majority of U.S. states?
IDEMIA Identity &… https://t.co/yK6UaaHZvj
...IDEMIA Identity & Security USA LLC is owned by Morpho USA, Inc., which is majority-owned (approximately 90%) by Advent International, a $90bn Boston-based private equity firm. It acquired IDEMIA in 2017.
Advent International holds investments in, among other things, OpenAI Deployment Company, Avio, Quantum Systems, Stark, Atwell, Saronic, and Cobham Ultra.
The company has been at the center of California voter registration controversies for years, as the California Globe has repeatedly reported on.
Democrat New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill announced Tuesday that a software error in the state’s Motor Vehicle system, from June 2023 to June 2024, improperly registered roughly 6,600 non-citizens to vote. This occurred despite applicants indicating they were not U.S. citizens. The vendor was IDEMIA, the same the software vendor the California DMV uses enabling people to register to vote. California’s Motor Voter program has been a disaster since its inception.
The Globe reported in 2019:
by March, 2018, more than one million “undocumented” immigrants received driver’s licenses from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which automatically registered them to vote under the “Motor Voter” program. SOS Alex Padilla said the DMV kept “firewalls” in place but didn’t explain how they worked, or how many ineligible voters the firewalls had blocked.
Last September, the DMV sent out 23,000 “erroneous” voter registrations they blamed on “technical errors.” Padilla proclaimed himself “extremely disappointed and deeply frustrated” but legitimate voters could believe he was delighted. The odds are strong that illegals made up most if not all of the newly registered voters but Padilla wasn’t saying how many made it to the polls in November.
IDEMIA handled data transmission from New Jersey’s DMV applications to the state’s Division of Elections.
CA is a state with which the company, for all the apparent issues, has had a long and no doubt lucrative association.
...IDEMIA is a French multinational company specializing in biometrics and identity solutions. IDEMIA Public Security North America is the primary software vendor for California’s DMV systems involved in driver license and ID transactions enabling voter registration.
California awarded IDEMIA a major up 12-year contract in 2022, with ongoing expansions for driver’s licenses, IDs, and “DMV reimagined” digital services. This includes technologies for applicant processing, card issuance, mobile tools, fraud reduction, and digital DMV features.
IDEMIA notes that it has provided physical ID cards and technology to California for more than 64 years.
So, what's the real story? Some watchers are speculating there may be a whistleblower in the wings.
As it stands, the governor's numbers are also in dispute. According to the president, they are a tad low.
🚨 President Trump: According to DHS, there are 35,152 non-citizens registered to vote in New Jersey.
— Gina Milan (@ginamilan_) July 22, 2026
UH OH! 👀 pic.twitter.com/6HtLWBmxUj
Why would Mikie Sherrill's quoted 400 illegal votes matter?
In case anyone forgot:
— 🇺🇸InDefenseOfFreedom🇺🇸 (@IDofFreedom) July 22, 2026
The outcome of the 2000 Presidential election was decided by 537 votes in Florida
Secure, accurate elections matter
Pass the Save Act now!
If the DoJ is correct, well...Katie bar the door.
The Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights has fired off a letter to the governor concerning those votes.
Today, NJ Gov. Sherrill stated that 400 non-citizens voted in elections.
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) July 21, 2026
This is unacceptable and illegal! The @CivilRights Division @TheJusticeDept is investigating this unlawful dilution of American votes. pic.twitter.com/AI8qHjcYxv
The pertinent section of AAG Dhillon's letter to Jersey Mikie makes two specific demands couched as polite requests:
1) the state has FIVE days to get answers to her queries back to her
2) preserve every last document from this second forward
AAG Dhillon's not subtle that she has had her eye on the Garden State, and they just gave her the excuse to go digging.
What a coincidence—that the same state experiencing a “software” problem is also refusing to cooperate with federal officials on noncitizen voter files.
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 21, 2026
HEH
How it started. How it’s going. pic.twitter.com/MfcZAT49kT
— Jesus A. Osete (@JesusOseteDOJ) July 22, 2026
Jersey Mikie Sherrill's answer to AAG Dhillon's DOJ letter?
WAAH! TRUMP! WAAH! WEAPONIZED! WAAH WAAH WAAH
...Sherrill spokesman Sean Higgins slammed the DOJ in comments to Fox News Digital on Thursday, saying the Trump administration has a "long history of weaponizing" the agency for political purposes and of attempting to "overturn election results."
"Governor Sherrill has been clear that she will use all the legal tools available to her to protect New Jerseyans' personal information," Higgins said, pointing again to Sherrill's public remarks Wednesday and noting the governor's "disgust" at the vendor and former Gov. Philip Murphy's administration.
Yeah.
https://t.co/YcP3DnuIHy pic.twitter.com/5dlmpDg5HW
— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) July 22, 2026
Five days.
TICK TICK TICK
