WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is pressing New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) to hand over detailed information on 6,600 noncitizens who were mistakenly added to the state’s voter rolls, including their names.
Sherrill said Tuesday that the registration problem stemmed from a “serious software error” in the state’s Motor Vehicle System involving French technology company IDEMIA, a mistake that resulted in roughly 400 noncitizens casting ballots.
Soon after, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter laying out the department’s requests as part of its inquiry. The information sought includes the individuals’ nationalities, registration dates and other key records tied to the 6,600 people.
“Ensuring that U.S. citizens’ votes are not illegally diluted by noncitizens’ votes is of paramount importance,” Dhillon wrote in the letter to Sherrill.
Dhillon set a five-day deadline for New Jersey to provide the records. Noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections.
The Justice Department also pointed to the episode in its continuing lawsuit against New Jersey, through which it is seeking access to the state’s voter roll data.
“The Trump administration has a long history of weaponizing the Justice Department for political purposes and attempting to overturn election results,” Sean Higgins, a spokesperson for Sherrill, told The Post.
“Governor Sherrill has been clear that she will use all the legal tools available to her to protect New Jerseyans’ personal information.”
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) also penned a missive Wednesday demanding the heads of the General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget conduct a full review of IDEMIA’s federal contracts.
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IDEMIA runs systems such as TSA PreCheck and driver’s license programs in most states.
Sherrill revealed that the state has hired an outside group, CSG, to investigate the matter, which will ostensibly look into failures on the state side as well.
“These are some of the things they’ve quickly gotten together so that we had an understanding of the scope here and what we were dealing with,” she explained at a press conference.
GOP critics, including President Trump, have cited the fiasco in New Jersey as a case in point for why more robust safeguards are needed to ensure election integrity.
Trump had spent months crusading for passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote, among other measures.
Just last week, Trump had suggested in his primetime address to the nation that the Garden State had nearly 35,152 people wrongly put on its voter rolls — a figure Sherrill said is unproven.
The debacle took place under former Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) administration, long before Sherrill became governor.
IDEMIA seemingly put the onus on the state for failing to verify the voter data after Sherrill threw the vendor under the bus Tuesday.
“IDEMIA’s role is to transmit information through the motor vehicle system,” the company said in a statement. “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.”
