Trump seizes on New Jersey election error to boost misleading fraud claims. Photograph: John Lamparski/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesNew JerseyTrump seizes on New Jersey election error to boost misleading fraud claimsRepublicans have latched on to the announcement after Trump’s lie-laden speech, but experts say DHS’s data is ‘designed to create a false argument’.
Donald Trump and his allies quickly seized on an announcement from Mikie Sherrill the New Jersey governor on Tuesday that 6,600 noncitizens had registered to vote because of a software error and fewer than 400 of them voted.
Details
“The number of potential ballots cast from those incorrect registrations would represent roughly 0.009% of all ballots cast in New Jersey’s 2024 general election, when Kamala Harris defeated President Trump by more than 250,000 votes.
But within hours of the announcement, Trump and other election deniers inflated the number of people who registered to vote because of the error, and held it up as yet another data point that “illegals” are stealing American elections on behalf of Democrats.
The number of non-citizens the state says were registered represents a “minuscule fraction” of New Jersey’s active registered voters in 2024, said David Becker, an election administration expert and the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
The noncitizen registration claim was part of a slew of misleading information Trump offered in a speech last week designed to weaken confidence in the US election system ahead of November midterm elections in which his party is expected to lose seats.
Trump seized on the news days after he said in a primetime speech that the Department of Homeland Security identified 278,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls in New Jersey and three other states.
Available information indicates that Trump said in a post on Truth Social: “35,152 is the new number just released by Homeland Security of non-citizens registered to vote in New Jersey.
The firestorm over the New Jersey voter rolls came as Trump escalated his incendiary rhetoric about voting ahead of the midterm elections, in a development tied to the same story.
Separately, “While administrative errors such as New Jersey’s do infrequently occur, they are very rare and affect a very small fraction of voters.
Statements
«It’s a laughable letter,»
Context
Last week, in a primetime address from the White House, he offered what seemed to be an eye-popping statistic: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had found 278,000 non-citizens on the rolls in just four states – California, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Since 2018, New Jersey has had automatic voter registration, which means that any time someone interacts with a motor vehicle office they are automatically registered to vote, unless they opt out.
Available information indicates that In a letter to New Jersey officials last week, the DHS said there may be as many as 35,152 noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.
The states entrusted to run our elections are best positioned to detect and correct these errors, as they have access to substantially better data than the federal government,” he said.
