The Justice Department is investigating more than 6,600 non-citizen voter registrations in New Jersey after the state's Democratic governor admitted that roughly 400 of those illegally registered individuals actually cast ballots.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, announced the probe and issued a demand letter requiring New Jersey to turn over detailed records from its Motor Vehicle Commission within five business days. The demand covers names, nationalities, and registration dates for every non-citizen placed on the rolls, plus specifics on how and when the approximately 400 who voted did so, whether at a polling station or by mail, and if by mail, how the state certified those ballots.
Breitbart News reported that Dhillon posted the announcement on X, framing the investigation as a response to Gov. Mikie Sherrill's own disclosure. Sherrill, a Democrat, attributed the mass registration of non-citizens to a "software glitch" in the state's motor-voter system.
Dhillon did not treat the governor's admission as a minor clerical matter.
"Today, NJ Gov. Sherrill stated that 400 non-citizens voted in elections. This is unacceptable and illegal! The @CivilRights Division @TheJusticeDept is investigating this unlawful dilution of American votes."
A DOJ spokesperson, Kiersten Pels, reinforced the division's stance. Newsmax reported Pels saying that voting by any non-citizen in a federal election "is illegal" and that "every unlawful vote dilutes the voice of American citizens." The Civil Rights Division is openly considering criminal prosecutions of non-citizens who cast ballots.
Gov. Sherrill blamed the registrations on a software error by IDEMIA, a French technology company that handles identity verification for New Jersey's motor-voter process. The New York Post reported that the error placed roughly 6,600 non-citizens on the state's voter rolls, with about 400 confirmed to have cast ballots in elections beginning in 2023.
Sherrill framed the disclosure as transparency. But Republican state Sen. Kristin Corrado, who represents Totowa, pointed out that she had been raising the alarm for years, and that nobody in the Democrat-controlled state government listened.
Corrado sent six separate letters warning of vulnerabilities in New Jersey's voter rolls dating back to 2019, Fox News reported. Every one went unanswered by state leadership.
"Now we are learning that a catastrophic government failure allowed thousands of non-citizens to be registered to vote, and suddenly everyone is acting surprised."
That six-year paper trail of ignored warnings undercuts the notion that this was a sudden, unforeseeable glitch. A state senator flagged the problem repeatedly. The state's Democratic leadership did nothing until the registrations became undeniable, and even then, the governor's office characterized the episode as an accident rather than a systemic failure.
Sherrill's disclosed figure of 6,600 may not capture the full scope. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin warned that as many as 35,000 non-citizens could still be on New Jersey's voter rolls, a number roughly six times larger than what the governor acknowledged. Fox News cited Mullin's warning as part of the DOJ's broader push for data from the state.
That 35,000 figure aligns with a number President Trump cited in a prime-time speech delivered roughly five days before Sherrill's disclosure. Trump stated that 35,152 non-citizens were registered to vote in New Jersey alone, and that 250,000 non-citizens were registered across New Jersey, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania combined.
The DOJ has been pressing a broader election integrity campaign that extends well beyond a single state. Dhillon's demand letter to New Jersey was filed as an exhibit in an ongoing DOJ lawsuit against the state over voter roll access, a legal fight that predated Sherrill's admission and now carries considerably more weight.
Vice President JD Vance responded to Sherrill's disclosure on X, using the episode to press for federal legislation.
"If only there was a way to stop this type of 'software error' that allowed noncitizens to vote in our election."
Vance urged the U.S. Senate to pass the SAVE Act, a bill designed to require proof of citizenship before voter registration. The legislation has faced resistance from Democrats, and the Senate has not acted on it as of this writing.
The DOJ has separately warned election officials in all 50 states that allowing non-citizen voting could result in criminal prosecution, a signal that the New Jersey case is part of a nationwide enforcement posture, not an isolated action.
New Jersey is not the only state facing DOJ scrutiny. Four green-card holders in the state have already been charged with illegally voting in federal elections. FBI Director Kash Patel said more cases are on the way.
Just The News reported that in California, a 64-year-old voting activist named Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong pleaded guilty to a two-decade scheme in which she paid homeless individuals two to three dollars each to sign election petitions and register to vote. In Pennsylvania, an illegal immigrant from Mauritania was arrested by ICE and the FBI after allegedly voting illegally in seven federal elections.
Patel framed the enforcement push in blunt terms: "Non-citizens voting is a federal crime, period. And while other administrations may have looked the other way in the past, those days are over."
That pattern of prior inaction is part of what makes the New Jersey case so damaging for Democrats. Declassified FBI files have shown that the previous DOJ blocked a full probe of alleged voter registration fraud in Michigan, raising the question of how many similar problems went uninvestigated for years.
Against this backdrop, the New Jersey Republican Party has formally asked the DOJ to send election monitors to Passaic County ahead of the state's gubernatorial race. The request, sent directly to Dhillon, cites a documented history of voter fraud in the county, including multiple indictments of local officials on fraud-related charges.
The DOJ confirmed it is reviewing the request. The Washington Examiner reported that the department issued a statement saying it is "committed to upholding the integrity of our electoral system" and will work to ensure elections "remain free, fair, and transparent."
Jason Sena, counsel for the New Jersey GOP, was less diplomatic about the state's track record: "It is clear that the New Jersey Attorney General's Office is incapable of enforcing the law and protecting the integrity of elections in Passaic County."
Federal prosecutors have also opened election fraud investigations in California, adding another front to the DOJ's expanding enforcement map.
Several critical questions remain unresolved. Sherrill has not clarified which specific elections the approximately 400 non-citizen voters participated in, or whether any of those races were decided by margins small enough for illegal ballots to have changed the outcome. The governor has not explained whether the "software glitch" has been fully corrected or whether the 6,600 non-citizen registrations have been purged from the rolls.
The gap between the governor's disclosed figure of 6,600 and the DHS warning of up to 35,000 non-citizen registrants also demands an answer. If the actual number is closer to 35,000, then Sherrill's disclosure covers less than a fifth of the problem.
Dhillon's demand letter asks for records that could begin to close that gap. But New Jersey has resisted DOJ requests before, and the state's cooperation, or lack of it, will determine how quickly the full picture emerges.
For years, Americans who raised concerns about non-citizen voting were told the problem was a myth. New Jersey's own governor just proved it isn't, and the only remaining question is how deep it goes.
