New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Commission automatically registered 6,600 non-U.S. citizens to vote and now Assembly Republicans are calling on Speaker Craig Coughlin to create a Special Legislative Committee on Election Integrity with subpoena power to investigate.
“Every New Jersey citizen who cast a lawful ballot deserves confidence that the state’s voter registration system is accurate and secure. That confidence can only be restored through a transparent, independent investigation conducted in public, with witnesses testifying under oath and the committee’s findings released to the public,” the 23 Republicans wrote to Coughlin on Wednesday.
Following the acknowledgement of the voter registration error that allowed 400 individuals who were not U.S. citizens to cast ballots, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she was ordering her chief counsel to launch an investigation, removing the illegally added voters from the voter rolls, and replacing the system’s vendor.
“This matter cannot be left solely to an internal executive branch investigation. The Motor Vehicle Commission and the vendors that operate its systems are accountable to the Legislature and the people of New Jersey. The Legislature has an independent responsibility to determine what happened, why it happened and whether additional failures remain undiscovered,” the letter says.
The Republican lawmakers want the committee to be bipartisan, consisting of an equal number of Republican and Democratic members, with co-chairs appointed by the Majority and Minority leaders. At a minimum, they say, the committee should compel sworn testimony from Latrecia (“Trish”) Littles-Floyd, former acting chief administrator of the MVC, representatives of Idemia, the system’s vendor, former Secretary of State Tahesha Way, and Secretary of State Dale Caldwell.
The Republicans also reference the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s letter to Caldwell identifying 35,152 non-citizens registered to vote, saying it is “a figure nearly five times larger than the 6,600 registrations disclosed today.”
“That discrepancy alone warrants legislative scrutiny. The administration has offered no explanation for the gap between the number disclosed and the figure identified by federal officials. New Jersey residents deserve a full accounting,” the Republicans wrote.
Last week, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Mullin announced he sent letters to the secretaries of state in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and Nevada warning them about tens of thousands of non-citizens who are illegally on the states’ voter rolls.
Through public hearings, the lawmakers want to determine when the MVC and Murphy administration first learned of the voter registration error, why the issue was not immediately disclosed, and the reason officials failed to implement reforms or answer questions about the integrity of the automatic voter registration system.
“We urge you to establish this committee without delay,” they wrote.
