It's become new governor's mess to fix
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA Today Network
..... Minutes into a two-hour hearing Tuesday [09/15/2026] the discovery of as many as 6,600 non-citizens on New Jersey's voting rolls, U.S. Representative Jeff Van Drew, the Donald Trump loyalist form Cape May county, veered off topic with a diatribe on the state's "sanctuary" policies for undocumented immigrants.
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"Today's [09/15/2026] hearing is an important one. It's important for every American who still believes their vote is supposed to count for something," The Republican said at the state of the September 15 [2026] hearing on Capitol Hill, which was billed as "restoring Election Integrity: Oversight of Election fraud in New Jersey."
..... "states like New Jersey have decided that the well-being of illegal immigrates, in my opinion, [is] more important than the well-being of American citizens," he added.
..... It was one of those attack that could be media moments, an attack that could be-packaged and fed to Fox News and fever-swamp fans throughout New jersey's 2nd Congressional District, where Van Drew faces a November 3 [2026] challenge from Democrat Zack Mullock, Cape May's mayor. In that sense, it may prove to be a marketing success.
..... But the hearing offered no new insights about Governor Mikie Sherrill's disclosure in July [2026] that htousnads of non-citizens had been registered through a purported computer glitch at the state Motor Vehicle Commission between June 2023 and June 2024.
..... They were registered as Democrats, Republicans and independents, and as many as 400 are believed to have cast votes, Sherrill said. Although the problem occurred during former Governor Phil Murphy's administration, it has become the new governor's mess to fix.
..... She hired a law firm led by Jeff Chiesa, a longtime confidential of former Governor Chris Christie, to investigate. in an August 20 [2026] update, Sherrill's office said improper registration had been revoked for more than 5,000 people and another 1,500 were still under review.
..... Earlier this summer, [2026] Van Drew's call for a hearing set the stage for a potentially nasty political showdown.
..... Tensions escalated after he sent a letter on July 24 [2026] demanding answers to 12 inquisitors about the registration snafu. Sherrill, a Democrat, accused Republicans of trying to exposit the issue for politically gain - namely to sow further doubts about the integrity of the election at the behest of Trump. She attacked Van Drew as a less-then-credible messenger, given his past hiring of an Atlantic City operative convicted of election fraud charges.
..... Depute that setup, Tuesday's [09/15/2026]
hearing of he House Judiciary Committee's oversight subcommittee launched no fireworks, in part because there were no obvious foils to interrogate, cross-examine or berate in front of the cameras.
..... Sherrill officials were not invited to attend, an administration official said. Officials from IDEMIA, the contractor that the governor blamed for supplying faulty software, were also not there to defend themselves.
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Instead, Van Drew rounded up three conservative think tank election experts from around the country who appeared to share the GOP's general suspicions of election fraud: a director of "election First Policy Institute; a former deputy secretary of he Virgina Board of the Election Protection Project; and an analyst from the Cato Institute.
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Only one witness - Jason Sena, a lawyer for the New Jersey state GOP - had any on-the-ground knowledge of Garden State elections. He told the panel that the scope of the problem could be bigger then what Sherrill disclosed. State Republicans have uncovered examples of non-citizens who were improperly registered before and after the 13-month period outlined by Sherrill, Sena said, proving no further details.
..... On paper, Steven Richer, a former Republican election official in Maricopa County, Arizona - a hotbed of electron fraud conspiracies and challenges in the 2020 election - seemed to be someone who might be counted on to characterize New Jersey' s controversy as one of national concern.
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Instead, he argued the opposite. he said nearly 29 audits of election fraud around the country had found just a handful of cases of election fraud and that the "coding error" in New Jersey revealed that only a tiny fraction of non-citizens were improperly added to the voter rolls.
..... "American elections are accessible, secure, and accurate. We should be proud," he testified. "Nonetheless, we should continue ti improve American elections and we should have conversations about documented proof of citizenship. But we must be honest about the reality of non-citizens voting."
..... US Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas, the top Democrat on the panel, was surprised by his comments - and highlighted Richer's political pedigree.
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"Mr Richer, I wanted to make sure that you were the Republican from Maricopa County," she said, slowly and loudly. "I just want to make suer I was clear about that, and the emphasis was on 'Republican.'"
..... "I got the emphasis," he replied.
..... Another factor may have drained the hearing of some of this potential drama. A day earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration's plan to regulate mail-in voting through the U.S. Postal Service, a proposal that some Democrats feared could have given Republicans an important advantage in the November 3 [2026] midterms.
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Like Sherrill, Democrats on the panel cast the hearing on "election integrity" as a hypocritical obsession, coming just days after trump offered 45,000 payments to every voter if the GOP retain majority power after the midterms. Technocrats called that a bribe.
..... "We do need to have a real conversation about cheating in election, but it doesn't state with the immigrates," Crockett said. "It may need to start at the top."
..... It was unclear whether Van Drew planned to continue his investigation. On social media, he complained that "instead of answers, the state has stonewalled us every stop of the way."
..... In a statement, Sherrill's office called the hearing "political theater."
..... "While Republicans in D.C. continue to weaponize this issue to advance Trump's voter suppress in agenda and showboat for their 15 seconds of fame on Fox News, Governor Sherrill is focused on continuing to solve the problems she inherited from the previous administration," the statement said.