Software Maker Slams Dem Gov Who Blamed 'Software Error' for State Registering 6,600 Noncitizens to Vote
French technology company IDEMIA is taking a stand after New Jersey officials tried placing the blame on it for a recent discovery about noncitizens being registered to vote in the state.
On Tuesday, New Jersey Democratic Gov. Mickie Sherill announced the “software problem” via a social media post. She said 6,600 people without citizenship had been put on Garden State voter rolls from a database used by the Motor Vehicles Commission.
“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, or took action when it happened years ago,” she said at a news conference, according to Politico.
Sherill said the error occurred from June 2023 to June 2024, according to Politico.
That would put it under her predecessor’s watch, fellow Democrat Phil Murphy.
While going out of her way to dodge responsibility for the problem, she tried to act like it was nothing for any voters to worry about.
She concluded “fewer than 400” of these people have cast ballots since 2023. “We have no evidence at this time that any elections were swayed.”
There’s nothing to see here.
However, IDEMIA is fighting back, according to the New York Post.
Lisa Shoemaker, a spokeswoman for the company, declared in a statement that: “The 6,600 records submitted to the [Motor Vehicle Commission] and Division of Elections contained correct information according to the design specifications as set out by the state.
“All 6,600 individuals indicated ‘Yes’ to wanting to register to vote and ‘NO’ to being a US Citizen.
“This information was recorded correctly and always available,” she said. “At no point was a noncitizen ever marked as a citizen in the database.
“IDEMIA does not control or manage voter enrollment, our role is simply to collect self-reported citizenship and interest data,” Shoemaker added about what IDEMIA actually does for its clients.
If the company’s position is correct, as the New York Post noted, it raised the questions “about why voter registration data submitted during applications for drivers’ licenses or identification wasn’t properly screened by New Jersey.”
“It’s not clear whether New Jersey had any safeguards in place for people who made mistakes — or situations where people lied about being citizens,” the newspaper reported.
However, the state fired back. A state official told the New York Post that software should have prevented any noncitizens from getting close to being registered.
“Anytime somebody answers ‘no’ to the citizenship question, that record should not be transmitted to the Division of Elections,” the official said, according to the newspaper.
While the situation is cloudy, it’s difficult to trust New Jersey here. To Americans who have good reason to doubt Democratic commitment to election integrity, there’s a greater likelihood that a Democrat-run state is responsible for ineligible voters than a private company releasing a faulty product and damaging its reputation with clients and potential clients of the future.
Regardless, the debacle is more evidence of the need for Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or “SAVE America Act.”
States have been afforded a massive amount of discretion in elections that has resulted in such a variance in standards, uniformity in the process is gone.
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