Two House committees have subpoenaed New Jersey’s State Department after finding more than 6,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls and getting just 12 documents back.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil, R-Wis., are jointly pressing New Jersey Acting Secretary of State Shirley Emehelu for records in a probe of noncitizens who landed on the state’s voter rolls. The Center Square reported that the chairs called the department’s response “inadequate” and accused the state of blocking oversight.
The committees say roughly 6,600 noncitizens were automatically registered to vote in New Jersey between June 2023 and 2024. About 400 of those improperly registered noncitizens voted in that span. Lawmakers want a full accounting of how it happened, why names stayed on the rolls into 2026, and what the state is still withholding.
Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, has blamed a “software error” at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. The software company Idemia has denied that charge. Removals have begun. Full cooperation, the chairs say, has not.
The committees launched the investigation in August. As of Wednesday before the October 21 letter, the New Jersey State Department had produced only 12 documents total. Officials cited unspecified privilege issues for the shortfall.
Jordan and Steil rejected that explanation. In their letter to Emehelu, they wrote that the department “has not produced any documents that explain how the alleged software error resulting in the registration of noncitizens was discovered or why noncitizens remained on the voter rolls until 2026, two topics about which the Committees specifically inquired.”
They went further on the privilege claims:
“Without additional details, it strains credulity to believe that every document responsive to the Committees’ request that has not been produced is privileged or that the privileges are being appropriately invoked,”
the chairs wrote. They said the thin response is impeding lawmakers’ “ability to conduct oversight and consider legislative reforms.”
That oversight push fits a broader pattern for Jordan, who has also sought a misconduct probe of an Obama-appointed judge in a separate fight over sanctions against a Trump lawyer.
The core numbers are stark. Committees are examining what they describe as more than 6,000 noncitizens recently found on New Jersey’s voter rolls. The underlying count is approximately 6,600 automatic registrations of noncitizens between June 2023 and 2024.
Sixty of those people were incarcerated at the time. Seven hundred fifty had specifically selected “no” during the voter registration age-eligibility process, and still ended up registered.
Approximately 400 improperly registered noncitizens were found to have voted between 2023 and 2024. That is not a paperwork glitch on a shelf. It is ballots cast by people who were not eligible to cast them.
Sherrill says New Jersey has removed more than 5,100 individuals who were registered and referred others to local election clerks for removal. The committees still want the documents that show how the state found the problem, how long the names sat on the rolls, and why production stopped at a dozen files.
Sherrill’s public explanation is narrow: illegal registrations stemmed from a “software error” at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. Idemia, the company that operates the software, has denied the accusation.
That dispute sits at the center of the document fight. The chairs specifically asked how the alleged error was discovered and why noncitizens remained on the rolls until 2026. They say New Jersey has not produced records that answer either question.
Automatic registration through motor vehicle offices is supposed to catch citizenship status before a name hits a voter list. When hundreds of noncitizens vote and thousands more get registered, including people who marked “no” on eligibility and people behind bars, the system failed the public it serves.
Jordan’s committee work has repeatedly tied weak enforcement to real-world costs, including when he pressed a Fairfax prosecutor over immigration policies and crime.
In their letter, Jordan and Steil framed the New Jersey failures as more than a state records mess.
“These ineligible voter registrations raise concerns about the application of federal law in New Jersey as it pertains to accurate voter registration, as well as the effect that New Jersey’s failure to identify and remove noncitizens from its voter rolls has on the civil liberties of American voters and their ability to elect their representatives,”
the lawmakers wrote.
President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have pointed to the New Jersey episode, and similar cases, as reasons Congress must pass the SAVE America Act. The bill would require Americans to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, require in-person voter registration for federal elections, and require states to remove all noncitizens from their voter rolls.
The House passed the measure. It effectively died in the Senate. Nearly all Democrats labeled it “voter suppression.” Republicans called the package “commonsense” election reform. The New Jersey numbers, thousands registered, hundreds who voted, names still on rolls into 2026, are exactly the kind of failure the bill’s sponsors said they were trying to stop.
Election integrity fights keep colliding with other institutional battles. Jordan’s panel has also produced a 57-page report accusing Jack Smith of trying to influence the 2024 election, underscoring how seriously House Republicans treat rules that shape who gets a say at the ballot box.
The subpoena and letter land on a simple demand: produce the records. The State Department under Acting Secretary Emehelu has answered with a trickle of documents and broad privilege talk. The chairs say that is not enough to evaluate federal law compliance or to craft reforms.
Taxpayers and lawful voters are left with a timeline that does not add up. Automatic registrations ran through 2023 and 2024. Voting by improperly registered noncitizens occurred in the same window. Removals topped 5,100 only after the problem became public. And as of the committees’ Wednesday count, the state had handed over 12 documents while declining to show how it discovered the so-called software error or why cleanup dragged into 2026.
House investigators have hit similar walls when local officials soft-pedal immigration enforcement. A related panel finding showed Fairfax County snubbing 1,670 ICE detainers while criminal illegal immigrants walked free, another case where process excuses collided with public safety and the law.
New Jersey’s motor vehicle channel, the disputed software story, the incarcerated registrants, the “no” answers that still produced registrations, and the hundreds of ballots cast all point to the same failure: the state put noncitizens on the rolls and left American voters to live with the result.
Clean rolls are not optional. When a state registers thousands of noncitizens, lets hundreds vote, and answers a congressional subpoena with a dozen documents and vague privilege claims, it is asking lawful voters to trust a system that already broke.
