Credit: (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

WASHINGTON — By withholding information from the public about voter registration errors, New Jersey handed a political gift to Republicans in Washington and Trenton, an omission that provided political kindling for a partisan fight over who can cast ballots.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill said a software glitch in a Motor Vehicle Commission system allowed about 6,600 people who are not U.S. citizens to register to vote. The yearlong error, starting in June 2023, enabled about 400 individuals to vote in at least one election, Sherrill said Tuesday.

The governor, a first-term Democrat who took office in January, added that she would “hold accountable” the people responsible for the error. She harshly criticized her predecessor, fellow Democrat Phil Murphy, for a lack of transparency. And to investigate, her administration hired CSG Law, a firm based in Roseland that includes Jeffrey Chiesa, who was state attorney general under Republican Gov. Chris Christie and later appointed to the U.S. Senate.

An early review showed the glitch was rooted in the state’s “motor-voter” system, which can register people to vote when they apply for driver’s licenses.

President Donald Trump and his Republican allies seized upon the revelation. “A Crooked Election System!!! SAVE AMERICA!!!” Trump, reacting to Sherrill’s admission, posted online.

The timing is ideal for congressional Republicans, who, under pressure from Trump, are trying to pass legislation that could deprive tens of millions of Americans of their right to vote ahead of the November midterms.

House Republicans piled on during floor debate Wednesday afternoon, using Sherrill’s announcement to drive support for their bill.

“When they get a driver’s license, it’s a problem,” Bryan Steil, a Republican from Wisconsin, said of immigrants in the U.S. without legal authorization. “If they can get a driver’s license, what’s to stop them from registering to vote?”

“Stories like what happened in New Jersey undermine confidence in our elections,” Steil said on the floor.

Then came Tim Moore, a hard-right Republican from North Carolina, who confused the number of noncitizens registered (about 6,600) with the number who voted (roughly 400).

Speaking of Democrats in the chamber, Moore asked, “Have they not seen the news that just showed that 6,600 votes were cast in New Jersey by non-citizens? Voter fraud is happening.”

Finally Steve Scalise, the House majority leader from Louisiana, stepped to the microphone. “Today’s New York Post uncovered yet again what we’ve known all along,” said Scalise, holding up the tabloid. “In New Jersey, they just admitted 6,600 noncitizens are on their rolls. Many of them voting. Voting in their elections. Illegals on their rolls, voting.”

Call for audit

Separately on Capitol Hill, New Jersey and Delaney Hall, the detention center in Newark, provided fodder for Republicans in their arguments in June to provide Immigration and Customs Enforcement with $70 billion, without reforms demanded by Democrats and advocates for immigrants.

It is illegal under federal law for people who are not citizens to vote in U.S. elections.

In a letter to the White House budget office and the head of the General Services Administration, which helps agencies run by providing space, equipment and supplies, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) requested an audit of the federal exposure to Idemia, the multinational tech company that is the Motor Vehicle Commissioner vendor. In a statement, Idemia said the information it gathers is passed to state election officials, who are responsible for verifying eligibility.

Idemia, based in a Paris suburb, has broad federal contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the FBI and elsewhere.

“Protecting Americans’ most sensitive data and safeguarding the integrity of federal identity, elections, screening, and border systems are core government obligations,” Gottheimer wrote. “I ask that you initiate this audit promptly and brief my office on its scope and timeline immediately.”

In his first term, Trump established a federal commission to investigate voter fraud, including voting by noncitizens, then disbanded it in 2018. After the 2020 elections, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the right-leaning Cato Institute, debunked claims of noncitizens’ voting in any way that swings elections.

“There are likely many problems with America’s voting system and there is no doubt that a non-zero number of non-citizens illegally voted, but there is no good evidence that noncitizens voted illegally in large enough numbers to actually shift the outcome of elections or even change the number of electoral votes,” Nowrasteh wrote in an essay called “Noncitizens Don’t Illegally Vote in Detectable Numbers.”

‘Like the hydra’

New Jersey’s three Republicans in Washington — Jeff Van Drew, Chris Smith and Tom Kean Jr. — all voted for the pending legislation. Every New Jersey Democrat in the House voted against it. The bill is unlikely to pass in the Senate, due to Democratic opposition and resistance from some Republicans who represent rural states, where voting by mail is popular.

The legislation would curtail voting by mail, disallow the use of college IDs to register and require proof of American citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate.

“The revelations from our state government that we have thousands of illegal aliens on New Jersey’s voter rolls, with hundreds actively voting in our elections is just stunning and completely unacceptable,” Kean said in a statement.

Van Drew on Tuesday criticized the software error. “This is exactly why so many New Jerseyans have lost confidence in our election system,” Van Drew said.

In an interview with NJ Spotlight News at the Capitol, Smith, first elected to the House in 1980, said he was the target of election fraud in 1982, a race he won by approximately 10,000 votes.

“Two thousand dead people voted against me,” Smith said. More people voted than were registered, Smith said. “In precinct after precinct after precinct,” he said. “It was pure corruption.”

State officials certified his election. The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office did not take up the case, Smith said.

Joe Morelle, a New York Democrat influential on election security, said Republicans are obsessed with elections just as Trump is obsessed with the 2020 presidential race — a contest he lost.

Republicans in Washington have a loyalty test in defending Trump over his false claims that he won that campaign.

“The American people keep cutting the head off this bill, flooding phone lines to their members and senators, demanding we block this anti-voter bill,” Morelle said. “So far, their voices are being heard, the resistance is working. But like the hydra, these heads keep growing back.”

Applause broke out among Republicans back-benchers on Wednesday afternoon in the House after members voted 216-214 to pass broad budget legislation — one of a bevy of bills that GOP leaders have used as a vehicle to pass their election legislation in whole or in part.