New Jersey Fixed the Registration Error in June 2024 and Told the Public in July 2026. The Vendor Says It Was Not a Software Error.

Start with what is not in dispute.

From June 2023 to June 2024, New Jersey's motor vehicle system registered about 6,600 noncitizens to vote. Every one of them answered 'no' to the citizenship question and 'yes' to the register-to-vote question, and the registration was transmitted anyway. The error was fixed in June 2024 [1].

It was not disclosed publicly until July 21, 2026. That is roughly 25 months between the fix and the disclosure, and the state has still not said who discovered it or when [1].

Fewer than 400 of the 6,600 cast ballots [1]. The exact number has not been released - worth noting, because the figure in Sunday's television coverage was a flat '400' [2]. The registrations spanned Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters [1].

Now the contested part. Gov. Mikie Sherrill attributed the registrations to a 'serious software error.' The vendor, IDEMIA, a longtime contractor to the Motor Vehicle Commission, disputes that on the record - saying its software operated as designed by the state, accurately recorded the responses, and transmitted data to the Division of Elections as specified [1].

That is claim against claim, and this newsroom is not in a position to resolve it.

Sherrill said she learned of the problem on July 15, 2026 from the Attorney General's Office. A spokesman for former Gov. Phil Murphy said that 'prior to Tuesday, Governor Murphy had no knowledge of any software glitch at the Motor Vehicle Commission' [1].

Two governors' offices say they did not know, the vendor says it did what it was told, and the 25-month gap sits there unexplained by any of them.

Meanwhile the Justice Department has demanded the names, addresses and voting locations of all 6,600. Sherrill refused, citing privacy and potential misuse; DOJ was already suing New Jersey for unredacted voter rolls [1].

The durable fact is not the software argument. It is that a documented registration failure was corrected in one month and disclosed twenty-five months later - and that the list of people it affected is now the object of a federal demand.