NJ voter glitch gives GOP chance to change subject
By: Charles Stile
Political Stile
USA today Network
..... To listen to House Republicans as they ramp up their election season scrutiny of the non-citizen registered voters fiasco in New Jersey, they are motivated by one crucial goal: to restore public confidence and "integrity" in voting.
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"The right to vote belongs to American citizens, and every unlawfully cast ballot diminishes the vote of eligible New Jersey voters," U.S. Representative Jeff Van Drew, R-Cape May, wrote in a letter to Governor Mikie Sherrill that he posted on X.
..... That sentiment, infused with the spirit of high-minded civic rectitude, has been a common them among state and national Republicans ever since Sherrill disclosed that a computer glitch at the state Motor Vehicle Commission improperly added 6,600 non-citizens to the New Jersey voter rolls between June 2023 and June 2024. some 400 people may have voted, the governor said.
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but make no mistake: There is also raw political calculation fueling the GOP wave of outrage. It has led to two Republican-controlled House committees demanding detailed documents and answers about the voter registration debacle by August 21. [2026]
..... For on thing, the furor provides President Donald Trump fodder to build support for the SAVE America Act, a strict set of proposed voter identification standards that is struggling to win support in the Republican-led Senate. So far, there is little evidence that the controversy has improved the bill's chances.
..... Still, the situation also gives Trump new fuel for his debunked narrative of voter fraud. He remains convinced that voting irregularities, orchestrated by Democrats, robbed him of reelection in 2020 and appears to be laying the groundwork for discrediting the results if Republicans lose control of Congress in the November [2026] midterms.
..... But the GOP also has other reasons to seize on Sherrill's registration revelation.
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One of them is rooted in the dismal state of the GOP during the Trump 2.0 presidency. Trump, who routed Vice President Kamala Harris and came within 6 points of capturing blue New Jersey two years ago, is becoming an albatross for GOP candidates this fall. [2026]
..... The president's fumbling of the Iran war and high gasoline prices have plunged his approval rating as low as 32%. Republican enthusiasm for Trump dropped from 85% to 76% in one month, according to a Quinnipiac University poll in July, [2026] and Democrats are leading in generic polls, a broad measurement for the fall [2026] campaign.
..... All this spells trouble for Republican candidates. Stroking unproven claims of potential voter fraud in a blue bastion like New Jersey could mobilize a demoralized base.
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Micah Rasmussen, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, noted that the GOP-controlled House has shown no interest in exploring similar controversies over nonc9t9zen voting in red states such as Texas and Florida.
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In Texas, for example, an overhaul of the state's voter registration wrongly flagged hundreds of legitimate voters as non-citizens. and in Florida, the threat of "likely non-citizen voters" propelled passage of a strict voter ID law. Critics said the number of possible non-citizen voters was fewer than 200, a tiny fraction of the state's 13 million voters.
..... singling out a blue "Sanctuary state" makes New Jersey an easy partisan target for Van Drew, who is running for reelection in the 2nd congressional district, and for other House members jittery about the potential of an anti-Trump tsunami in November. [2026]
..... House committee "investigations" will give GOP members the stage to browbeat New Jersey officials in public, producing a bumper crop of video clips for the rage algorithms on social media.
..... "They know that their base is not motivated," Rasmussen said.
..... Every Republican from New Jersey to Washington, DC, seems eager to stoke the issue for political mileage. State Republicans are calling for bipartisan hearings, saying the number disclosed by Sherrill is just the "tip of the iceberg." The Republican Nation la Committee chairman, Joe Gruters, has gotten into the act, joining the chorus of Trump administration officials demanding that the Sherrill administration turn over voter registration data, which Sherrill has refused to do on privacy grounds.
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Harmeet Dhillon, the director of the Civil rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, has also opened a federal probe into what she called this "unlawful dilution of American votes."
..... Dhillon got into a war of words with Sherrill and went as far to suggest that the governor may be covering up the mess, even though the 6,600 were added to the rolls three years before her election. And U.S. Representative Tom Kean Jr. - who vanished from public view for four months this year [2026] without disclosing his struggle with depression - declared on social media that "New Jersey voters deserve transparency."
..... Sherill and other Democrats have pushed back at times, vowing not to hand over personal information of voters that they say Trump officials would "weaponize" for political gain."
..... And Sherrill's staff has sought to knock Van Drew off his moral perch, noting that he has his own "sordid history as far as elections go." Sherrill's office cited his hiring of South Jersey operative Craig Calloway, who was convicted on blackmail and bribery-related ballot fraud changes. Van Drew has maintained hat he was unaware of Calloway's illegal activities.
..... Sherrill is another reason for the intensified Republican focus.
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The former congresswoman and Navy helicopter pilot is a prominent figure in the party's moderate wing and could very well be considered a candidate for vice president or president in 2028. Earlier this year, [2026] Sherrill formed a new political action committee, Mission to Deliver, which recently announced endorsement of 13 center-left candidates for the House with military or national security backgrounds. It's an early signal of her ambitions beyond the Statehouse.
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The House Republican investigation and hearing to come will give them an opportunity to dim the buzz of a rising Democratic star.
..... Stephen Sigmund, Sherrill's miscommunications director said his boss has been in the cross-hairs of Trump's GOP since she took office. She views the new crusade over non-citizens as part of a broader "voter suppression" effort by a GOP desperate to hold power, Signund said.
..... "They want to make it so that people that won't vote for them can't vote at all," he said.