By Terrence T. McDonald | Editor
Good morning!
The company at the center of New Jersey’s voter registration debacle has multiple multimillion-dollar contracts with state government.
Besides the Motor Vehicle Commission work that has brought the French firm, Idemia, notoriety, the company also contracts with New Jersey State Police on fingerprinting services and handles fingerprinting, background checks, and other work for various state agencies.
Overall, the company has raked in $60M+ plus since 2010. Gov. Mikie Sherrill, who blamed the company in part for registering non-citizens to vote at the motor vehicle agency, said last week her administration is moving to sever that contract, but a Sherrill spokesman declined to say what the state would do with the other contracts.
More: We finally heard from Sherrill’s predecessor, Phil Murphy, who she has also blamed for what she has called a software error that registered non-citizens to vote for a full year starting in June 2023, when Murphy was governor. Murphy spokesman Mahen Gunaratna said Murphy did not know about the issue, commends Sherrill for investigating it, and is looking forward to her investigation’s findings.
Agriculture: In non-scandal news, Dana DiFilippo dives deep today into an issue that has flown under the radar to probably everyone but livestock farmers. New Jersey has no USDA-certified slaughterhouses where they can get animals butchered for individual cuts, meaning farmers like one Dana talked to has to drive out of state to slaughterhouses that have monthslong waits. There’s one planned for Warren County but it turns out it’s just as hard to build a slaughterhouse in New Jersey as it is to build affordable housing.
Drugs: A camper at a YMCA summer camp in East Orange shared edibles that looked like candy with about a dozen children, turning them into what one parent called “little baby zombies,” reports John S.W. MacDonald at the NY Times. The edibles were apparently chocolates laced with magic mushrooms. A YMCA spokesman said the organization is not to blame.
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Flood of poll watchers, observers, monitors to descend on midterm voters, by David Lightman
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