The Republican National Committee is threatening to take New Jersey election officials to court unless they turn over records detailing how noncitizens ended up on the state’s voter rolls and what steps have been taken to identify and remove ineligible registrants.
The RNC issued formal notices alleging violations of the National Voter Registration Act to New Jersey’s secretary of state as well as election officials in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties.
The committee is demanding documents concerning the removal of noncitizens, procedures used to verify citizenship and other efforts to maintain the accuracy of voter rolls. According to the RNC, the officials have until Sept. 15 to provide the requested information before potentially facing litigation.
“Democrat (Gov.) Mikie Sherrill admitted what the RNC already uncovered through public records requests: Noncitizens are on New Jersey’s voter rolls,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in an RNC release. “Now, election officials are refusing to turn over records explaining how it happened.
“Voters deserve answers, and the RNC is putting officials on notice: Comply with the law, hand over the records or face legal action.”
The RNC said records obtained from Bergen County showed that 134 noncitizens were removed from New Jersey’s voter rolls between January 2023 and August 2026.
According to the committee, 91 of those registrations were connected to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission.
Separately, Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration has acknowledged that a software problem at the MVC resulted in approximately 6,600 people being improperly registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024, before Sherrill became governor.
State officials said roughly 5,100 of the individuals caught up in the error were subsequently taken off the voter rolls because there was no separate registration or attestation establishing their eligibility to vote.
Approximately 1,450 additional registrations were changed to rejected status and sent to county election officials for further examination.
According to the state, approximately 340 people who were newly registered as a result of the software problem ultimately cast ballots. Officials also identified roughly 220 people affected by the glitch who voted but had prior registrations or separate eligibility attestations indicating that they may have been legitimately registered.
Sherrill has said county election officials were instructed to resolve any outstanding cases ahead of the November election.
The governor has also accused the Trump administration of attempting to expand federal control over state voter rolls. She has opposed federal efforts to obtain nonpublic voter information, describing the effort as a “phishing expedition here in New Jersey.”
Sherrill’s office has said the state’s investigation into the MVC software failure is continuing.
