Non-citizens voted due to 'error,' gov says

Good morning!

New Jersey was at the center of nationwide claims of voter fraud Tuesday when Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced the state accidentally registered about 6,600 non-citizens to vote and about 400 of them actually cast ballots.

Sherrill blamed the mistake on a software error by a state vendor and blasted her predecessor, Gov. Phil Murphy, who was in charge when the yearlong glitch started back in 2023.

“This entire situation is unacceptable,” Sherrill said. “It’s unacceptable that the vendor released software with such a glaring error. It’s unacceptable that the MVC took a year to get this issue fixed, and it’s unacceptable that no one, in the previous administration, brought this to light, demanded accountability.”

The news was met with a chorus of I-told-ya-sos from President Trump and nearly every Republican elected official in New Jersey. The state’s GOP released a report last month that said automatic voter registration had helped lead to at least hundreds of non-citizens being added to the voter rolls.

“Vindication!” New Jersey GOP Christine Giordano Hanlon texted to one of our reporters, Ben Leynse.

Read more from Ben.

More: A spokesman for Murphy did not get back to us. But Idemia, the vendor criticized by Sherrill, did and pointed the finger of blame back at the state government, saying it’s ultimately state election officials’ job to figure out whether a non-citizen added to the voter rolls is indeed eligible to vote. “Information submitted by Idemia must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections,” the statement reads. State GOP officials are calling for investigations and for an end to automatic voter registration at motor vehicle locations.

Trenton: New Jersey’s state government paid $189.2 million to end 373 legal cases in 2025, according to data the New Jersey Monitor obtained this week through public records requests. Offenses against children accounted for about a third of that, $70 million. Thirty-seven cases resulted in payouts of $1 million or more.

D.C.: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D) got into some Twitter sniping with some of his Dem colleagues yesterday after he criticized the Democratic Socialists of America for seeking to “hijack the Democratic Party” and Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pennsylvania) accused him of warmongering. Gottheimer’s response:

Economy: New Jersey’s jobless rate dipped down two tenths of a percent in June as the nation overall saw little change in employment rates. Leaders in states that held World Cup matches said they saw jumps in hotel revenue and more spending at bars and restaurants.

ICE: Immigration arrests reached 1,593 per day in early July as the Trump administration continued its mass deportation effort, and there were more than 43,000 arrests in June, the highest recorded by the Trump administration, according to new data ICE released this week.