We analyzed New Jersey's voter rolls, here's what data shows
By: David . Zimmer
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... A record 6.7 million people are registered to vote in New Jersey, but the state's voter rolls are under scrutiny going into the November 2026 election after state officials acknowledged that roughly 6,600 people were incorrectly registered through a Motor Vehicle Commission error.
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The scrutiny comes as the state's political landscape grows more competitive. Republicans spent the past several years narrowing Democrats' longstanding registration advantage before Democrats regained some ground over the last year. [2025]
..... The debate over voter registration has expanded beyond party gains and losses.
..... The review found about 340 of the 6,600 people newly registered through the MVC had voted. Separately, roughly 220 affected voters had previous registrations or other records suggesting their registrations could be valid. Those cases were sent to counties as well.
..... State officials have said they found no evidence that the votes affected the outcome of an election.
..... According to the Justia U.S Law website, in New Jersey, anyone who "knowingly and fraudulently votes" when they are not legally entitled to can face criminal penalties. There is no information on whether charges are being filed or have been filed against any of the ineligible voters who voted.
NJ voting registration subject of hearing
..... The MVC voter registration issue was the subject of a September 15 [2026] hearing by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight.
..... Representative Jeff Van Drew, a Republican from Cape May County, questioned which elections the affected voters participated in, whether the roughly 6,600 registrations represented the full extent of the problem and why it took until this summer [2026] for the error to become public. he accused state officials of a "cover-up," saying they knew about the problem in 2024 but did not disclose it publicly for two years.
..... Van Drew said he asked the state for the voting information and breakdown of where the 6,600 live, but to no avail. He said he's been told the affected registrars were "scattered across the state." He said the state has also not said how many of the 340 voted in each county, municipality or election.
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Four witness testified at the Republican-led hearing: election attorney Jason Sena; Justin Riemer, president of Restoring integrity and Trust in Election; Josh Findlay,a senior fellow with the America First Institute; and Stephen Richer, a former Republican Maricopa County recorder and legal fellow at the Cato Institute. No New Jersey election official or representative of IDEMIA testified.
..... Richer, who oversaw voter registration and early voting in Maricopa County from 2021 through 2025, said the New Jersey case was the largest finding of registered non-citizens he was aware of but cited audits elsewhere that found far smaller numbers.
..... "Even in this scenario, this worst-case scenario, non-citizens up a fraction of a percent of voters," Richer said.
..... Sena said records obtained from Bergen and Hudson counties showed non-citizens registering before and after the June 2023 through June 2024 period identified by state officials, including through methods other than the MVC system.
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During questioning, Sena said the records he had reviewed involved people who later removed themselves from the voter rolls. He said those cases could represent only a subset.
..... NJGOP Executive Director Luke Ferrante said the party does not have confidence that the state's voter rolls are accurate heading into the November 3 [2026] election.
..... Ferrante said the party's review of pubic records found non-citizen registrations outside the one-year period identified by state officials and called for a full audit of the rolls.
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"The state should do a complete audit of the voter rolls for citizenship so that voters could feel confident that the problem has been adequat3ely addressed," Ferrante said in an email.
..... He also called for changes to the MVC registration system and legislation requiring voter identification.
..... New Jersey Democratic State Committee Chairman LeRoy Jones Jr. accused Republicans of suing the error to undermine confidence in the state's election.
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"An issue was brought to Governor Sherrill's attention by her attorney general that occurred well before she arrived in Trenton, and she immediately went about working to correct it," Jones said.
..... The MVC has said it is replacing IDEMIA. The state's investigation into how the registration were processed remained open when its latest update was released August 19. [2026]
..... Counties begin mailing general election ballots September 19. [2026] The deadline to register to vote is October 13. [2026] Early in-person voting runs from October 24 through November 1, [2026] followed by Election Day on November 3. [2026]