Why New Jersey’s erroneous noncitizen enrollment is far from proof of election fraud

It also comes as Republicans are pushing legislation that would impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements on voter registration. Photograph: John Lamparski/Bloomberg via Getty Images View image in fullscreen It also comes as Republicans are pushing legislation that would impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements on voter registration. Photograph: John Lamparski/Bloomberg via Getty Images Analysis Why New Jersey’s erroneous noncitizen enrollment is far from proof of election fraud Sam Levine in New York Republicans have latched on to the announcement after Trump’s lie-laden speech, but experts say DHS’s data is ‘designed to create a false argument’ Donald Trump and his allies quickly seized on an announcement from Mikie Sherrill, the New Jersey governor, on Tuesday that 6,600 noncitizens had registered to vote because of a software error, and fewer than 400 of them voted, using thedisclosure to escalate false claims that there are scores of noncitizens on the voter rolls. Trump seized on the news days after he said in a primetime speech that the Department of Homeland Security identified 278,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls in New Jersey and three other states. But a Guardian review of the letters DHS sent the states shows the agency expressed less certainty about the number and has offered no explanation of its methodology. Since 2018, New Jersey has had automatic voter registration , which means that any time someone interacts with a motor vehicle office they are automatically registered to vote, unless they opt out. Between 2023 and 2024, some 6,600 people had indicated they were not citizens, yet nonetheless had been registered to vote. Around 400 of those people cast a ballot, Sherrill said. The number represents a small fraction of the more than 6.6 million registered voters in the state. But within hours of the announcement, Trump and other election deniers inflated the number of people who registered to vote because of the error, and held it up as yet another data point that “illegals” are stealing American elections on behalf of Democrats. Trump makes unverified claims of China ‘election meddling’ as critics fear ploy to challenge midterm results Read more Trump said in a post on Truth Social: “35,152 is the new number just released by Homeland Security of non-citizens registered to vote in New Jersey . These are just the ones that got caught. The real numbers will prove to be many times this amount. They are all Dumocrats!.” There were Democrats and Republicans erroneously registered, Sherrill said on Tuesday, with the majority unaffiliated with a party. The incident is far from proof of the widespread fraud that Republicans allege, experts say. “It’s not good, I don’t want to suggest otherwise. I don’t want to tell anyone that they’re stupid for thinking it’s less than perfectly optimal. But it’s not really an example of what they’re talking about,” said Stephen Richer, a Republican who oversaw elections in Maricopa county, Ariz