{"id":7998,"date":"2026-07-22T16:06:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7998"},"modified":"2026-07-22T16:06:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T16:06:33","slug":"what-to-know-about-noncitizens-voting-in-new-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7998","title":{"rendered":"What to know about noncitizens voting in New Jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t prove President Donald Trump\u2019s election fraud claims, most experts say.<\/strong><\/p>

Read more As another LeBron decision looms, Heat say news conference video was mistake<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Mail-in ballots are processed in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 2021. (Seth Wenig\/AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Less than a week after President Donald Trump addressed the nation to declare without evidence that U.S. elections aren\u2019t free and fair, New Jersey said that officials mistakenly registered 6,600 apparent noncitizens to vote over the course of a year in 2023 and 2024 because of a software error. An initial review found that fewer than 400 of them later voted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The White House jumped on this news to try to get Congress to pass voting restrictions, but election experts say this batch of noncitizens voting, while relatively large, doesn\u2019t further Trump\u2019s false claims that there is widespread voter fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a software error that was corrected, not a systemic problem,\u201d said Wendy Weiser with the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on democracy issues.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what to know about what happened.<\/p>\n

New Jersey, like several other states, allows undocumented immigrants to apply for driver\u2019s licenses. When they do, they check a box verifying they are not citizens. But somewhere along the line in 2023, about 6,600 noncitizens were mistakenly classified as citizens who were then eligible to vote, said New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) on Tuesday. (She wasn\u2019t governor at the time.) Of those, about 400 cast ballots over the next year until the mistake was caught and corrected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am appalled by the reckless failures that allowed this to happen and the lack of transparency shown by those in charge at the time,\u201d Sherrill said in a social media post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sherill said there is no evidence that any elections were swayed. In the 2024 presidential election, Kamala Harris won New Jersey by more than 250,000 votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be looking at different possibilities of making our elections more secure going forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocrats and their media allies have repeatedly said it is impossible for noncitizens to register to vote, let alone cast a ballot,\u201d a White House spokeswoman, Abigail Jackson, told the New York Times. \u201cAmerican voters deserve to have confidence that our elections are safe and secure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The upshot: Very little other than an error that a state caught and is taking seriously, say election experts.<\/p>\n

Experts maintain \u2014 and studies support \u2014 that noncitizen voting is still rare. It\u2019s illegal to vote in U.S. elections unless you\u2019re a citizen, and states have guardrails in place to prevent noncitizens from trying to do so.<\/p>

Read more Democrats chip away at GOP cash lead centered on Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

When anyone applies for an ID or driver\u2019s license, federal law says they must also provide proof of residence, which almost always makes clear whether they are a citizen. Undocumented immigrants living in states that allow them to apply for licenses have to provide their foreign documentation. In New Jersey, it seems that those noncitizen voters accurately reported their citizenship, and the system mistakenly registered them as voters anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happens sometimes, rarely, due to administrative and technical problems,\u201d said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights attorney and head of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. \u201cBut it\u2019s very rare, affects very few, and the states discover it using their substantially better data on voters compared to the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has spent the better part of this year trying to get Congress to dramatically change how people vote in November, saying it would \u201cguarantee the midterms\u201d for Republicans.<\/p>\n

He wants to ban mail voting, require people to prove they are citizens when registering to vote and present photo identification to vote, among other provisions. Some of those ideas are politically popular<\/a>, and he\u2019s claimed the only opponents to his voting bill are those \u201cwho want to cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n

But nonpartisan and even some Republican election experts have said the extra documentation is unnecessary and potentially even disenfranchising, even taking into consideration what happened in New Jersey. Millions of Americans register to vote every year, and they are already required to verify they are citizens when they do.<\/p>\n

Under Trump\u2019s Save America Act, those who move to a different state or change their names, including after a marriage or divorce, would have to reregister with a passport, marriage certificate or other documentation. Over half of Americans don\u2019t have passports, and not all Americans have copies of their birth certificates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe premise of the Save Act is we need to ensure there are processes that confirm citizenship,\u201d Matt Germer, director of the governance program at the R Street Institute, a conservative think tank, said in an interview as the House passed a version of this bill earlier this year that has since stalled in the Senate. \u201cBut I think much of the burden of citizenship verification should be on the government, which holds much of this data in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those changes wouldn\u2019t be impenetrable. Mistakes still happen, say experts, as New Jersey proved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Save Act would not have prevented what happened in New Jersey,\u201d Weiser said. \u201cIt was a software glitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amber Phillips<\/i><\/a> writes <\/i>The 5-Minute Fix newsletter<\/i><\/a>, a quick analysis of the day\u2019s biggest political news. <\/i>Send her an email here<\/i><\/a>, or <\/i>ask a question<\/i><\/a> that could be featured in an upcoming newsletter.<\/i><\/p>

Read more Democratic socialists won in liberal cities. Can they do it in a swing state?<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t prove President Donald Trump\u2019s election fraud claims, most experts say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat to know about noncitizens voting in New Jersey - Moving Insider USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7998\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What to know about noncitizens voting in New Jersey - Moving Insider USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It doesn\u2019t prove President Donald Trump\u2019s election fraud claims, most experts say.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=7998\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving Insider USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-22T16:06:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/07829dc0faedaf437080617197e6248c-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1706\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=7998#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=7998\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/22d40ab81790f6a361021763bb56ef03\"},\"headline\":\"What to know about noncitizens voting in New Jersey\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-22T16:06:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=7998\"},\"wordCount\":926,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=7998#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/0f0c5fcb407897db6ab1d677afa66f6c-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=7998#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=7998\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movinginsiderusa.com\\\/?p=7998\",\"name\":\"What to know about noncitizens voting in New Jersey - 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