By Joseph Ax and Doina Chiacu
PRINCETON, New Jersey, July 21 (Reuters) - Nearly 400 New Jersey residents who were not U.S. citizens cast ballots after thousands of non-citizens were accidentally registered to vote between 2023 and 2024 due to a software error, Democratic Governor Mikie Sherrill said on Tuesday.
The White House seized upon the disclosure to press Republican President Donald Trump's longstanding claim that voting by non-citizens is widespread, for which he has not presented evidence. Studies show such incidents are rare and often a result of error rather than fraudulent intent.
Trump has increasingly warned that November's midterm elections could be compromised unless stricter safeguards are adopted. Last Thursday, he delivered a prime-time speech from the White House focused on election security. The president and his allies claim that Democrats benefit from non-citizen voting, although they have provided no supporting evidence.
He has been pushing Republican Congress members to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require Americans to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
Democrats, who have stymied the bill in the Senate, and voting rights groups argue the legislation is intended to disenfranchise legitimate voters, especially younger voters, people of color and lower-income workers who are more likely to lack the required documentation.
Democratic leaders have accused Trump of laying the groundwork for interfering with the midterms, which polls show are likely to result in Democratic gains in a closely divided Congress.
In a statement, the White House said the New Jersey discovery proves that Democrats are wrong to suggest non-citizen voting is not a concern.
"As President Trump has said, there is nothing more important than the integrity of our elections," White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. "And this latest incident underscores the absolute necessity of the SAVE America Act."
Sherrill said the software glitch added about 6,600 non-citizens to the state's voter rolls between June 2023 and June 2024 even though they answered "no" when asked whether they were U.S. citizens while applying for driver's licenses or ID cards.
The state's preliminary analysis showed fewer than 400, including Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters, actually voted, Sherrill said.
NO EVIDENCE ANY ELECTIONS WERE SWAYED
Sherrill said she has ordered the removal of those individuals mistakenly added to the voter rolls and will replace the vendor responsible for the error, which occurred before she took office in January. The software glitch itself was corrected in 2024, the governor said.
"As the Trump Administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring that we protect our elections," she said at a press conference. "Let me be clear: Donald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity ...The difference between my administration and this White House is stark: we don't deflect, deny or exploit problems for our own gain. We find them, and we fix them."
In his Thursday speech, Trump asserted that his administration had discovered more than 275,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states, including New Jersey, though he did not provide evidence regarding how many had actually voted.
More than 4 million people voted in New Jersey in the 2024 presidential election, meaning that if around 400 non-citizens all voted in that contest, they would represent less than 1 in 10,000 ballots cast.
"We have no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed," Sherrill said.
Trump has spent years raising doubts about electoral outcomes. He falsely asserted that his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged due to non-citizen voting, mail ballot fraud and voting machine tampering.
Numerous courts and vote recounts found no evidence of large-scale fraud in the 2020 election. A Reuters data analysis revealed that voting violations by noncitizens occur extremely rarely and were often the result of misinformation from others or confusion on their part.
On Friday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent a letter to the four states Trump mentioned in Thursday night's speech: New Jersey, California, Nevada and Pennsylvania. He asked them to review their voter rolls and respond within two weeks.
Sherrill said she learned of the software error on Wednesday, a day before Trump's speech.
Asked about Mullin's letter, she said the state requested evidence for Trump's claims about tens of thousands of non-citizens registered to vote in New Jersey but has not received a reply.
A spokesperson for Pennsylvania's top election official noted that evidence shows non-citizen voting is "extremely rare" but said the state would review "any information provided by DHS so we can evaluate the validity of these claims."
Representatives for Nevada and California's top elections officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New Jersey and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin, Daniel Wallis and David Gregorio)
