“Last week I learned that a serious software error in New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System led to the registration of roughly 6,600 people who indicated that they were not US citizens between June 2023 and June 2024, almost three years prior to my taking office. These individuals answered ‘no’ when asked on a keypad whether they were a US citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway.”
“This happened under the previous administration and, upon learning this information, I immediately ordered my chief counsel to launch an investigation to get to the bottom of what occurred. I also ordered the removal of any residents from our voter rolls who were erroneously added between June 2023 and June 2024. The new MVC Administrator that I appointed has begun the process of replacing the vendor responsible for administering the system,” says New Jersey Gov Mikie Sherill in a Tuesday press release, getting in front of it because it’s coming no matter what.
“Our preliminary analysis shows fewer than 400 individuals who were newly registered for the first time because of the error voted. hey were registered as Democrats, Republicans and Unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state,” Sherrill continued and welp that’s it. “Trump won New Jersey in 2024, Jack Ciattarelli is the legitimate governor, Sherrill just admitted it” on the headlines of every dogshit right wing propaganda site, all day, every day for the next four months – at least.
“I want to underscore how seriously I take this matter… As the Trump Administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring we protect our elections. Let me be clear: Donald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity. For more than ten years, he has worked to undermine Americans’ faith in our elections by spreading lies about legitimate election results, attempting to overturn a free and fair election, encouraging an attack on our Capitol when he couldn’t accept the will of the voters, and defunding election security at the federal level,” Sherrill then wrote and that’s not going to preempt the shitstorm that’s coming, but restating the record is important nonetheless. Especially given that it’s probably around 350 more illegal voters found than the federal government under Trump has actually been able to identify and prosecute.
“The difference is simple: when we find a problem, we don’t hide it, deny it, or invent conspiracies. We investigate it, we fix it, and we tell the public. That’s what accountability and good governance look like, and that’s exactly what my administration is doing. New Jerseyans should have confidence that every eligible citizen can vote, every lawful vote will be counted, and every reasonable step will be taken to protect the integrity of our elections. That’s my responsibility, and it’s one I will never stop fighting to uphold,” the governor concluded in the statement that was first and foremost good faith ownership of someone else’s fuckup and the parties responsible have been fired.
The alternate version is that Sherrill covers it up, quietly cancels all those voter registrations, then some MAGA shitbag who works at the DMV stages some of Nick Shirley circlejerk video and it GOES VIRAL and gives Trump the pretext to declare some sort of national emergency and so on.
But yeah. Trump will probably use this as pretext to declare some sort of national emergency anyway. At the very least these 400 people are going to be immediately arrested and deported.