A political firestorm over thousands of noncitizens landing on New Jersey’s voter rolls has taken a sharp turn, with the technology vendor at the heart of the controversy now pointing the finger squarely back at state government.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill sparked the uproar Tuesday when she disclosed that roughly 6,600 noncitizens had been registered to vote, a mistake she attributed to a “serious software error” within the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission system.
She said the glitch may have allowed approximately 400 noncitizens to actually cast ballots.
But the company behind that system, French firm IDEMIA, is telling a very different story.
Spokeswoman Lisa Shoemaker says her company’s technology performed exactly as designed and that the fault lies with how New Jersey handled the data it received.
Applicants seeking a state ID or driver’s license in New Jersey are given the option to register to vote during that process — a system used in dozens of states nationwide.
Federal law strictly forbids registering anyone who identifies as a noncitizen, no matter how the paperwork is filled out.
Shoemaker insists the individuals in question never hid their immigration status. Every one of the 6,600 people flagged, she says, explicitly told the state they were not U.S. citizens.
“All 6,600 individuals indicated ‘Yes’ to wanting to register to vote and ‘NO’ to being a US Citizen,” Shoemaker said. “This information was recorded correctly and always available.”
She emphasized that the underlying data was never scrambled or mislabeled within IDEMIA’s system.
“At no point was a noncitizen ever marked as a citizen in the database,” Shoemaker said.
According to her, the records transmitted to state agencies matched exactly what New Jersey had asked for in the first place.
“The 6,600 records submitted to the [Motor Vehicle Commission] and Division of Elections contained correct information according to the design specifications as set out by the state,” she said.
That account is being directly disputed inside New Jersey’s government.
A state official told The Post that any application listing “no” on the citizenship question should have been automatically blocked from reaching election officials.
“No, that is not correct,” the official said. “Anytime somebody answers ‘no’ to the citizenship question, that record should not be transmitted to the Division of Elections.”
The registrations trace back to 2023 and 2024, placing the origin of the problem under former Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration rather than Sherrill’s.
In response to the fallout, Sherrill’s office has brought in an outside firm, CSG, to dig into how the breakdown happened.
IDEMIA maintains its job was narrow: gathering the citizenship and voting-interest answers applicants provided, not deciding who gets added to the rolls.
“IDEMIA does not control or manage voter enrollment, our role is simply to collect self-reported citizenship and interest data,” Shoemaker said.
She went further, suggesting the state may share blame for pushing incomplete applications through the system anyway.
“This leads to more questions – if the Division of Elections had missing information which is required to register in the State of New Jersey, did the Division of Elections approve these individuals be added to the Voter Rolls,” Shoemaker said.
Adding another layer to the dispute, Shoemaker said the files sent to election officials were also missing other necessary details, such as party affiliation.
The fallout has rippled well beyond Trenton. President Trump and his supporters have seized on the episode as proof that federal election law needs stronger enforcement mechanisms.
Trump has spent recent months pushing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, a bill that would require documented proof of citizenship before anyone can register to vote.
Federal officials moved fast once Sherrill’s announcement became public.
The Justice Department gave the governor a five-day window to hand over records identifying every noncitizen mistakenly placed on the voter rolls.
The episode has also surfaced in an unrelated but ongoing DOJ lawsuit against New Jersey, in which federal attorneys are seeking broader access to the state’s voter roll records.
Sherrill’s office is pushing back against what it characterizes as a politically motivated federal response. Spokesman Sean Higgins accused the administration of using the situation as a pretext.
“The Trump administration has a long history of weaponizing the Justice Department for political purposes and attempting to overturn election results,” Higgins said.
Higgins added that the governor plans to resist the federal demands using whatever legal options are available to her.
“Governor Sherrill has been clear that she will use all the legal tools available to her to protect New Jerseyans’ personal information,” he said.
Congressional Democrats from New Jersey are also weighing in. Rep. Josh Gottheimer called Wednesday for federal budget and procurement officials to formally review the government’s contracts with IDEMIA.
Those contracts carry significant weight.
IDEMIA’s systems power TSA PreCheck enrollment and handle driver’s license processing across most of the country, meaning the fallout from New Jersey’s voter roll crisis could extend into far broader corners of the federal government.
