Election expert: N.J. voter glitch makes no case for Trump’s SAVE America Act

WASHINGTON — A leading elections expert said Thursday that New Jersey’s voter registration breach was so minor that it did not provide arguments in favor of passing President Donald Trump’s voter registration legislation.

David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights lawyer who now heads the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the 6,600 noncitizens mistakenly allowed to vote accounted for just .1% of the state’s registration list and the 400 people who erroneously cast ballots totaled .009% of the total votes in the 2024 election.

“It’s 400 voters in the state of New Jersey after a glitch,” Becker said on a Zoom call with reporters. “If you don’t have the glitch, the number is much smaller. This is a tiny blip. They’re trying to use a nuclear bomb to kill an ant. This is not a problem facing American elections right now.”

Republicans seized on Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s admission that a software failure mistakenly registered thousands of voters as an argument to pass the SAVE America Act, Trump’s top legislative priority. 

House Republicans earlier this week added the measure’s provisions to three unrelated bills, which all three New Jersey GOP members backed as they all narrowly passed on mostly party-line votes.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Thursday that the goal was to “secure American elections by passing the SAVE America Act into law, as much of that as possible, that’s the objective.”

But Becker said the bill wouldn’t have addressed the glitch since the information already was presented to the authorities, and didn’t affect any election results in the state.

“There’s no evidence this affected any election whatsoever,” Becker said. “It’s an extremely small amount. This does not support President Trump’s claims about noncitizen voting. This is something the SAVE act wouldn’t have done anything about.”

Studies have shown that noncitizen voting is extremely rare and that the legislation’s requirements for voter IDs and proof of citizenship could disenfranchise millions of American citizens who don’t have access to the documents needed. 

Senate Democrats have blocked the bill in their chamber, and Senate Republicans don’t have the votes needed to end the filibuster rule and let the legislation pass with 51 votes.

Democrats have accused Trump of trying to manipulate the midterm elections in favor of the GOP. Polls favor Democrats to win back control of at least one house of Congress.

“Trump has tried to corrupt everything he touches, and our elections are next,’’ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Trump knows he can’t outrun Republicans’ awful record, so he’s trying to rig the race in November. Trump and the GOP would rather silence Americans than answer to them.”