Sherrill must fix Murphy's mess

Voting scandal needs bipartisan investigation

By: Charles Stile
Political stile
USA Today

..... Just days after President Donald Trump's widely panned and paranoid prime-time rant about purported hordes of non-citizens casting votes in U.S. elections, along comes New Jersey with news that helps him make his case.
..... In a July 21 [2026] news conference, Governor Mikie Sherrill disclosed that between 2023 and 2024, roughly 6,600 non-citizens were improperly registered to vote as they applied for driver's licenses at the Motor Vehicle Commission. she cited a software error: Applicants who pressed a button declaring "no," that they were not U.S. citizens, were resisted as citizens anyway. some 400 of them are believed to have voted.
..... The governor laid the blame squarely on the Administration of he predecessor Phil Murphy, although she never mentioned him by name. The former federal prosecutor's tone was stem, and her indictment of the colossal breach was punishing. the presentation, at moments, edged closer to the fury once flashed by the last prosecutor to hood the governor;s eat, Christ Christie.
..... "It's unacceptable that the MVC took a year to get this issue fixed, and it's unacceptable that no one in the previous administration brought this to light, demanded accountability or took action when it happened years ago," Sherrill said.
..... She went into full Mop-Up-the-Murphy-Mess mode, ditching the software vendor IDEMIA, dispatched Lieutenant Governor Dale Calwell, who doubles as sectary of state, to purge the rolls, and assigning her chief counsel to conduct an investigation/ And ,not unexpectedly, she took a preemptive shot at Trump - who once begged the Georgia secretary of state to "find me 11,740 votes," and who routinely promotes baseless conspiracy theories hat the 2020 election he lost was "rigged" with widespread fraud.
..... He's the last person to be wagging his finger at New Jersey about preserving the integrity of electrons, she said.
..... "I think Donald Trump has done more to undermine free elections in this country than certainly anyone in my lifetime, including Vladiir Putin," Sherrill said.

Huge favor to Trump

..... That's a sharp, made-for-MS Now soundbite, but rehashing Trump;s corrosive claims doesn't dispel the reality that the revelation is a potential fiasco for the Democrats in New Jersey and possibly in the nation. Just as Trump's tank of conspiratorial fuel was starting to run low with the public, New Jersey has filled it back up - this time with real facts from a Democratic "sanctuary state," as the president likes to call blue states.
..... The New jersey scandal breathes new life into his push to pass the long-stalled SAVE Act, which calls for strict voter identification requirements and is a key piece of his campaign to prevent a Democratic Party takeover of Congress in the midterm,s. Even though instances of non-citizen voting have been proved rare and the 6,600 registrations discovered last year [2025] (and brought to Sherrill's attention last week) represent only scintilla of the state's 6.9 million registered voters, it gives Trump and his allies a big beachhead to continue the political fight.
..... "We are now the poster child for why he needs a SAVE Act," said Miicah Rasmussen, director of the Oebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.
..... And Republicans didn't waste any time trying to seize the initiative.
..... Not surprisingly, leading the charge was Trump, launching a tip-of-the-iceberg attack in social media posts. he cited the flap as evidence of a "crooked election system" and recycled a claim that he made in last week's [07/16/2026] speech that New Jersey has 35,152 non-citizen on its voter rolls - a number prided by Department of Homeland Security that has not been verified.
..... "35,152 is the new number just released by Homeland Security of non-citizens registered to vote in New Jersey. these are just the ones that got caught. the real numbers will prove to be meany ties this amount," Trump said on Truth Social.
..... He added, "they are all dumocrats! Republicans, get smart and straighten out our Crooked Elections! Pass The Save America Act!!!"
..... On July 22, [2026] the U.S. Department of Justice got into the act, giving the Sherrill administration five days to hand over those who improperly voted, a move designed to ratchet up pressure on Sherill in a separate but related squabble over voter data. the Trump administration has been trying to build a national database of voters in preparation for the midterm elections, but New Jersey and other have resisted, saying it violates voter privacy.
..... In so many words, Sherrill's administration told the DOJ to take a hike.
..... "The Trump administration has a long history of weaponizing the Justice Department for political purpose and attempting to overturn election results," she said in a statement. 'Governor Sherrill has been clear that she will use all the legal tools available to her to protect New Jerseyans' personal information."
..... The Republican National chairman is also demanding prosecution for any non-citizen who voted illegally. On the state level, the Republican leaders echoed an I-told-you-so chorus, reminding of their warnings for years about the potential perils of the motor vehicle registration precess and their own findings earlier this year [2026] of possible non-citizen registration.
..... "We will not be bullied on an issue so crucial to our democracy and will continue to shine a light on a legitimate concern that should not be partisan" state GOP chairwoman Christine Giordano Hanion said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the governor chose to deflect blame for the state's failings to President Trump rater focusing on the issue at had,
..... Despite the bombshell, it's unlikely that this incident will became the catalyst that leads to final passage of the SAVE Act. Breaking thorough a logjam in the U.S. Senate would require suspending or dismantling the filibuster, witch many Republican senators, especially from states with small populations, are loath to do.
..... And, of course, Trump is also pinned down with bigger concerns,like his sputtering effort in the Iran war, rising gas prices at the pump and an increasingly unpopular mitigation enforcement marred by shootings in Texas and Maine. No Jersey scandal is going to halt his self-inflected tailspin.
..... Meanwhile, state Republicans are hoping the issue will vault them into relevance in Trenton, Hanlon called for a bipartisan investigation, which, given the national scrutiny that this "glitch" may cause, sounds like a prudent idea. Findings that are reached with a two-party seal of approval could quell public concerns.

Troubling questions

..... But for the short term, troubling questions fill the Trenton horizon. For example, the software problem was flagged and fixed in June 2024. Sherrill said she learned of it just last week. [07/16/2026] Why did it take so long to surface? Did it get lost in the food chain of the bureaucracy, or did Murphy operatives simply conceal it rather than having a political controversy erupt in New Jersey in a presidential election year? Did any of the 400 improper votes tip the scales in a tight election?
..... "The matter cannot be left solely to an internal executive breach investigation," wrote 23 Assembly Republicans in a letter to Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin. The Assembly Republicans are also demanding the creation of a legislative panel with subpoena power.
..... While Sherrill has sought to steer this scandal back on the Murphy administration, it is here to fix. it will become a test of her skills as a first-year governor who has repeatedly preached the gospel of transparency and accountability.
..... "For too long, the Trenton playbook has been to avoid tackling and solving tough problems," she said in her press conference. "New Jersey is better than that, and I am working to create a different culture - one where we are both effective and transparent."
..... That test now begins away from the cameras and in the executive offices of the Motor Vehicle Commission

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