Governor Mikie Sherrill now says she supports voter identification requirements in New Jersey, a striking reversal for a Democrat who voted against the federal SAVE Act and called it "voter suppression."
Sherrill's office confirmed her position to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, with a spokesperson saying the governor "supports the current rules requiring ID for voter registration and she is open to considering proposals to strengthen those to make sure we have the strongest, fairest elections in the nation." The statement came weeks after Sherrill disclosed that a system error at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission had improperly registered roughly 6,600 people who indicated they were not U.S. citizens, and that fewer than 400 of them actually cast ballots.
The concession puts Sherrill in an awkward spot. She voted against the SAVE America Act in 2025 during her final year in the U.S. House, and her office has described the federal bill, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register and photo ID to vote, as an "extreme voter suppression bill." Now she is endorsing the same principle at the state level while fighting the federal version.
New Jersey Assembly Minority Leader John DiMaio, a Republican, told Fox News Digital that Sherrill's comments mark a "significant shift." But he made clear that talk is cheap without action.
"But agreeing with us publicly is the easy part."
DiMaio said his caucus has been pushing voter ID and election integrity reforms for years, and that the legislation is already drafted and introduced. The problem, he said, is on the other side of the aisle.
"We've been pushing voter ID and other election integrity reforms for years. The bills are already introduced. We've repeatedly called for hearings and votes. The roadblock has been Democratic legislative leadership."
DiMaio added that Republicans have heard nothing from Democratic leaders on scheduling hearings or votes on voter ID. He also said the Motor Vehicle Commission failure "exposed serious weaknesses in New Jersey election safeguards" and that lawmakers still have not received an answer about what went wrong.
The registration error ran from June 2023 through June 2024, the Washington Examiner reported. During that window, the Motor Vehicle Commission's system automatically registered people who had answered "no" when asked whether they were U.S. citizens. The state has since removed more than 4,500 of those registrations and placed remaining cases under additional review, because some of the flagged individuals may in fact be citizens.
Sherrill blamed the error on the administration of her predecessor, former Democratic Governor Phil Murphy. Breitbart reported that Sherrill said she was "appalled by the reckless failures" that allowed illegal voting and that she "immediately ordered my chief counsel to launch an investigation" upon learning of the problem.
Sherrill maintained that the improper votes did not change any election outcomes. National Review noted her statement that the roughly 400 non-citizens who voted "were registered as Democrats, Republicans and Unaffiliated voters and were scattered across the state." But that assurance rings hollow when set against the scale of the breach, and the fact that it went undetected for an entire year.
Sherrill's disclosed figure of 6,600 covers only registrations generated during a single twelve-month period. New Jersey's automatic voter registration system has been in place since 2018. Election insiders from both parties believe the actual number of non-citizen registrations is considerably larger, Newsmax reported.
The deeper problem is structural. Beth Thompson, the Hunterdon County Board of Elections administrator, explained that neither Social Security nor driver's license verification confirms U.S. citizenship. "It's the honor system," Thompson said. In other words, New Jersey's voter rolls depend on applicants telling the truth, and the state has no reliable mechanism to check.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has estimated that as many as 35,152 potential non-citizens may be registered to vote in New Jersey alone. That figure has not been independently verified, but it underscores the gap between what Sherrill disclosed and what federal officials believe the data shows. The New York Post reported that the White House seized on Sherrill's admission as vindication.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson put it bluntly: "Democrats and their media allies have repeatedly said it is impossible for noncitizens to register to vote, let alone cast a ballot. Time and again, they have been proven wrong."
Mullin reinforced the point: "Just ONE illegal vote cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen."
The contradiction at the center of Sherrill's position is hard to square. She told local media in July that she "doesn't have a problem with voter ID." But she simultaneously described the SAVE Act, the federal legislation that would impose voter ID nationwide, as a tool of suppression.
"I'm very opposed to the SAVE Act. I do believe that is just a tool of voter suppression and an attempt to get all of the personal identifying information of New Jerseyans into the federal government systems, which I'm opposed to."
Her office framed the distinction as a matter of who controls the data. The spokesperson said Sherrill "has stood firm against MAGA Republicans' voter suppression attempts and Trump's demands for New Jersey voters' personal identifiable information." The governor also pointed to her signing of the John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act, a state law that bans voter intimidation and discrimination, expands language assistance, and requires extra review of election changes in places with a history of discrimination. She expanded early voting in municipal elections as well.
Shortly after taking office in January, Sherrill signed Executive Order 12, which restricts certain immigration enforcement activities on state property, a move that sits uneasily alongside her new concern about non-citizens on voter rolls.
Sherrill's assurance that "no elections were swayed" deserves scrutiny. The New York Post noted that several local races in New Jersey were decided by margins smaller than the roughly 400 illegal votes that were cast. In tight municipal and county contests, even a handful of improper ballots can determine the outcome. Sherrill offered no precinct-level analysis to back her claim.
The SAVE America Act, which passed the House, would require documentary proof of citizenship to register for federal elections and photo identification to vote. It needs 60 votes to advance in the Senate. President Trump renewed his push for the bill from the Oval Office on Monday.
"I think they should pass Voter I.D. I think they should pass proof of citizenship, basically SAVE America Act... I think that should be something that we should absolutely get."
Democrats have spent years casting voter ID as a racist barrier to the ballot box. When Georgia passed a sweeping election law in 2021 that added identification requirements for absentee voting, the backlash was fierce. Major League Baseball pulled its All-Star Game out of Atlanta in protest. Georgia already required photo ID for in-person voting before the 2021 law. Turnout in the state did not collapse. Now a Democratic governor in New Jersey is conceding the same basic point her party fought in Georgia, that asking voters to prove who they are is not an unreasonable demand.
DiMaio is right that agreement is the easy part. Sherrill controls the governor's mansion, but Democratic leadership controls the legislature. Until voter ID bills get hearings and floor votes in Trenton, Sherrill's stated openness is a press release, not a policy. And the fundamental question DiMaio raised remains unanswered: what exactly went wrong at the Motor Vehicle Commission, and how long has it been going wrong?
When 6,600 non-citizens end up on your voter rolls and your best defense is that only 400 of them voted, you do not have an election integrity system, you have an honor system with a glitch. Voters deserve better than that, and they know it.
