Attorney General seeks records to validate GOP chair claim

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has asked Monmouth County election officials to turn over paper voter registration forms from 2022, 2023 and 2024 – the first indication that law enforcement — and not just the law firm investigating the voter registration controversy — is involved.

The request follows disclosures by Republican State Chairman Christine Hanlon that the New Jersey GOP’s Election Integrity Task Force had identified noncitizens who registered using paper applications, expanding the controversy beyond the Motor Vehicle Commission’s automatic voter registration system.

Hanlon, who also serves as Monmouth County Clerk, said her review showed that suspending the motor voter program would not address every weakness in the state’s voter registration process.

“The problem is the verification and the honor system rather than an actual process,” Hanlon said during a press call last week. “Going back to the paper doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.”

The Attorney General’s request indicates that investigators are examining whether registration problems extended beyond an MVC software error that resulted in approximately 6,600 noncitizens being improperly registered between June 2023 and June 2024.  Those individuals had identified themselves as noncitizens while completing MVC transactions, but their information was still transmitted for voter registration processing. Fewer than 400 later cast ballots.

Hanlon said Republican investigators obtained public records showing that noncitizens were registered through the MVC outside the one-year period identified by the Sherrill administration. Some later voted.

One noncitizen was registered in April 2023, two months before the administration’s timeline begins, while another was registered in March 2022.  Hanlon said another individual had been registered since before 2000 and had a voting history extending from November 2000 through November 2022.

Other cases involved registrations in 2019, 2020 and 2022.

“This one-year time period is not the only time period non-citizens had access to New Jersey’s voter rolls,” Hanlon said.

Republican lawmakers have called for motor voter registrations to be suspended until the state determines how the errors occurred and certifies that the system has been fixed.  They have also sought a special legislative investigation with subpoena power and public hearings.