IDEMIA said it only transmitted motor vehicle data and that New Jersey election officials were responsible for validating applicants after Gov. Mikie Sherrill blamed the vendor for registering 6,660 noncitizens.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The software company involved in New Jersey’s motor vehicle voter-registration system is disputing Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s claim that a vendor error caused thousands of noncitizens to be added to the state’s voter rolls.
IDEMIA said its role was limited to transmitting information collected through the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission and that the state Division of Elections was ultimately responsible for determining whether applicants were eligible to vote.
The disagreement emerged hours after Sherrill said a software malfunction resulted in 6,660 noncitizens being registered between June 2023 and June 2024.
She also said a preliminary state review found that as many as 400 of those individuals later cast ballots.
“IDEMIA works with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, and has for more than 40 years, to support the process through which eligible individuals may indicate their interest in registering to vote when applying for or renewing a driver’s license or state-issued identification card,” IDEMIA said in a statement to Just the News. “IDEMIA’s role is to transmit information through the motor vehicle system.”
“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,” the company continued. “Information submitted by IDEMIA must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections.”
The statement directly challenges Sherrill’s assertion that the software company was responsible for the registrations.
According to IDEMIA, the state’s election agency was required to review the information after receiving it and determine whether each applicant met New Jersey’s voter eligibility requirements.
Sherrill said Tuesday that the affected residents had correctly identified themselves as noncitizens while applying for driver’s licenses or state identification cards.
“These individuals answered ‘no’ when asked on a keypad whether they were a U.S. citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway,” Sherrill said.
The governor said the error occurred during the administration of former Gov. Phil Murphy, also a Democrat.
New Jersey’s state government is controlled by Democrats, placing both the motor vehicle and election agencies involved in the process under administrations led by the same party during the period in question.
Sherrill said the state had begun replacing the vendor she identified as responsible for administering the voter-registration system.
IDEMIA’s response indicates that replacing the vendor may not address the entire failure if state election officials were expected to verify citizenship and approve or reject the applications after transmission.
The competing explanations raise questions about where the breakdown occurred.
One possibility is that motor vehicle software incorrectly converted truthful noncitizen responses into records identifying applicants as citizens.
Another is that the information was transmitted accurately but state election officials failed to detect and reject ineligible applicants during their required review.
The submitted information does not establish whether IDEMIA sent the citizenship responses correctly, whether a software field was changed during transmission or whether state employees approved records containing conflicting information.
The dispute also leaves unresolved whether multiple safeguards failed rather than a single error occurring at one stage.
Sherrill said as many as 400 of the 6,660 improperly registered noncitizens cast ballots in a recent election.
She said the voters were registered across political categories and throughout the state.
Those who voted “were registered as Democrats, Republicans and Unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state,” Sherrill said.
The governor did not disclose which candidates received the ballots or identify the elections in which they were cast.
It therefore remains unknown whether the votes were concentrated in particular races, whether they affected any outcome or how state officials determined that the individuals had participated.
The political affiliations assigned to the registrants do not reveal how they voted because ballots are secret and party registration does not determine a voter’s choices.
The disclosure confirms, however, that the problem extended beyond inaccurate records on a database.
At least some people whom the state now identifies as noncitizens were permitted to receive and cast ballots after being registered through the motor vehicle process.
Sherrill has said the applicants were not at fault because they truthfully answered the citizenship question.
That assertion shifts responsibility toward the institutions that collected, transmitted, reviewed and approved their information.
IDEMIA’s statement attempts to narrow the company’s responsibility by emphasizing that it does not make the final voter-eligibility determination.
The company said the New Jersey Division of Elections must validate and adjudicate every registration record it receives.
If that description is accurate, state officials had a separate obligation to identify the noncitizen responses before placing the applicants on the voter rolls.
The submitted information did not include a response from Sherrill or the Division of Elections addressing IDEMIA’s explanation.
It also did not indicate whether the state possesses audit logs showing how each citizenship response moved through the system.
Those records could establish whether the data changed before reaching election officials or whether the state approved applicants despite receiving accurate noncitizen information.
A complete investigation would likely examine the keypad responses, data-transfer records, voter-registration files, adjudication procedures and notices sent to affected residents.
It would also need to determine when officials first became aware of the registrations and why the problem remained undetected long enough for hundreds of ballots to be cast.
The disagreement has broader implications for public confidence in automatic or motor vehicle-based voter registration.
Such systems are presented as convenient methods of registering eligible citizens while relying on government databases and screening procedures to prevent ineligible applications from being approved.
The New Jersey case suggests that applicants can answer the citizenship question correctly and still be added to the rolls if technical and administrative safeguards fail.
Sherrill’s initial explanation placed primary responsibility on the software vendor.
IDEMIA now says the final responsibility belonged to state election officials.
Neither account, standing alone, explains why the citizenship information did not prevent registration at some point in the process.
The state has not yet provided a detailed technical report identifying the precise cause of the failure.
It remains unclear whether the incident resulted from faulty programming, incorrect system configuration, inadequate employee review or a combination of those factors.
The number of affected records also raises questions about whether the failure was systematic.
A total of 6,660 registrations over approximately one year suggests more than an isolated clerical mistake involving one or two applicants.
Investigators will need to determine whether every noncitizen who used the relevant motor vehicle process during that period was incorrectly registered or whether only certain transactions were affected.
The state will also need to explain how it identified the affected population and whether the review extended beyond June 2023 through June 2024.
Sherrill said the error occurred under Murphy’s administration, but her administration is now responsible for correcting the records, identifying ballots cast and determining accountability.
IDEMIA’s response could complicate the state’s effort to assign responsibility solely to the vendor.
The company has worked with the Motor Vehicle Commission for more than 40 years, according to its statement, and maintains that New Jersey retained final authority over voter eligibility.
If state officials conclude that IDEMIA transmitted incorrect data, they may seek contractual penalties, terminate the relationship or pursue other remedies.
If the company’s account is supported by the records, attention may instead turn toward the Division of Elections and its internal verification procedures.
The dispute may also become relevant to ongoing debates over federal proof-of-citizenship requirements and access to state voter files.
Supporters of stricter election safeguards are likely to cite the registrations and ballots as evidence that existing state systems cannot always prevent noncitizen participation.
State officials may argue that the incident was a correctable administrative failure rather than evidence of deliberate voter fraud.
The distinction between intentional misconduct and institutional failure does not eliminate the need to determine how ineligible registrations were approved.
The affected applicants reportedly disclosed their status accurately, yet the system still produced registrations and, in hundreds of cases, ballots.
That outcome demonstrates that the reliability of voter rolls depends not only on truthful applicants but also on the accuracy of software, data transmission and government review.
The central question is now whether the failure originated with IDEMIA, New Jersey election officials or both.
Until the state releases technical records and a complete investigative report, the public is left with conflicting accounts from the governor and the company responsible for part of the registration process.
What is undisputed is that 6,660 noncitizens were placed on New Jersey’s voter rolls and that as many as 400 of them cast ballots before the problem was uncovered.
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