The biometrics and cryptography company that New Jersey officials said was responsible for erroneously adding thousands of noncitizens to voter rolls denied any mishandling — stating that the responsibility of voter registration lies with the state.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced Tuesday that a serious software error caused by IDEMIA, a French company that operates globally, led to roughly 6,600 non-citizens being accidentally registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024. Fewer than 400 went on to illegally cast ballots, Sherill said, and a preliminary review found that the votes did not sway any elections.
The debacle comes in the middle of intensified debates about election integrity aggravated by President Donald Trump’s widely-debunked assertions that the 2020 election was rigged against him. Trump mentioned the incident during a Wednesday speech in Georgia, falsely stating that “thousands and thousands of votes” were illegally cast.
IDEMIA said in a statement it had worked with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission (MVC) for more than 40 years, supporting the system that allows eligible residents to indicate they want to register to vote when they apply for or renew a license or state ID.
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“IDEMIA’s role is to transmit information through the motor vehicle system,” the statement said, adding that voter registration data is transmitted to the state Division of Elections, which “ultimately” holds responsibility for verification. “Information submitted by IDEMIA must still be validated and adjudicated by the Division of Elections.”
On Wednesday, a Sherrill spokesperson said IDEMIA’s system error could be attributed to the records of people who answered “No” to the citizenship question erroneously being transmitted to the Division of Elections.
IDEMIA refuted the allegations in a statement to NOTUS, saying the 6,600 files submitted to the MVC and Division of Elections contained accurate information “according to the design specifications as set out by the state.” The 6,600 individuals had checked “Yes” to wanting to register to vote and “No” to being a citizen, IDEMIA said.
The files were always available to MVC officials and did not indicate at any point that the individuals were citizens, IDEMIA said. In June 2024, the Division of Elections had alerted the MVC to 6,600 files that were missing a party affiliation, IDEMIA said, but the company did not have confirmation that those individuals were ever registered to vote.
“IDEMIA does not control or manage voter enrollment, our role is simply to collect self-reported citizenship and interest data,” the statement said. “This leads to more questions — if the Division of Elections had missing information which is required to register in the State of New Jersey, did the Division of Elections approve these individuals be added to the Voter Rolls.”
Those who were erroneously registered to vote are being notified by mail and are being removed from the voter rolls, Sherill said on Tuesday. She heavily criticized IDEMIA for releasing software with “such a glaring error,” the MVC for taking more than a year to patch the issue and former Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration for not being transparent about the incident at the time.
Sherrill acknowledged on Tuesday that Trump would likely use the incident to back up his claims of widespread vulnerabilities in the country’s election security system, despite little evidence to support the claim. She said Trump “has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity.”
Noncitizen voting is extremely rare, election officials say, and there is no evidence that it has happened on a scale that could change the results of an election.
The incident has sparked further scrutiny. On Wednesday, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey) demanded a government-wide audit into IDEMIA’s federal contracts, saying the company handles “an excessive amount of the federal security apparatus.”
“This incident raises serious concerns about the reliability of IDEMIA’s software, the company’s quality control practices, and the federal government’s reliance on a single contractor to manage highly sensitive identity and biometric systems,” Gottheimer wrote in a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and U.S. General Services Administration Administrator Edward C. Forst.
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