Vice President JD Vance is turning New Jersey’s voter-roll scandal into a direct challenge for the state’s two Democratic senators: back the SAVE America Act or explain why they will not.
Vance called on Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim to support the election-integrity bill after Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill admitted that roughly 6,600 noncitizens were wrongly registered to vote in New Jersey because of what she called a software error.
Even worse for Democrats, Sherrill said a preliminary review found fewer than 400 of those mistakenly registered people cast ballots.
The registrations happened between June 2023 and June 2024, before Sherrill took office and while Democrat Phil Murphy was governor.
Sherrill said the problem came from New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle System, where people applying for driver’s licenses and identification cards answered that they were not U.S. citizens but were still registered anyway.
“These individuals answered ‘no’ when asked on a keypad whether they were a U.S. citizen when applying for drivers’ licenses and identification cards, but through no fault of their own, the system registered them anyway,” the governor stated.
Sherrill said she ordered an investigation and directed officials to remove anyone who was wrongly added to the voter rolls during that period.
She also said the state has begun replacing the vendor responsible for administering the registration system.
For Republicans, the admission was not a surprise. It was a flashing red warning light.
Vance seized on the moment and pressed Booker and Kim to help pass the SAVE America Act, which would require states to verify citizenship before registering voters in federal elections.
“If only there was a way to stop this type of ‘software error’ that allowed non citizens to vote in our elections,” the vice president wrote on X. “I hope Senators @CoryBooker and @SenatorAndyKim will join us in voting to pass the SAVE America Act to ensure that only eligible American voters can participate in New Jersey elections, and all elections across the United States.”
If only there was a way to stop this type of “software error” that allowed non citizens to vote in our elections.
I hope Senators @CoryBooker and @SenatorAndyKim will join us in voting to pass the SAVE America Act to ensure that only eligible American voters can participate in… https://t.co/2SnSubRfpk
— JD Vance (@JDVance) July 21, 2026
The New Jersey disclosure came just days after President Donald Trump delivered a primetime address warning that noncitizens were appearing on voter rolls across the country.
The Department of Homeland Security has said its review found as many as 35,152 possible noncitizen registrations in New Jersey.
The agency’s preliminary review also flagged possible noncitizen registrations in other states, including California, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
The figures have given Trump and Republicans new ammunition as they argue that Democrats have spent years downplaying voter-roll failures while resisting basic citizenship checks.
Sherrill still used her announcement to attack Trump.
POLL: Will You Support Trump And His Candidates In The Midterms?
As the Trump Administration tries to weaponize elections for political gain, I am ensuring we protect our elections. Let me be clear: Donald Trump has zero credibility on the issue of election integrity. For more than ten years, he has worked to undermine Americans’ faith in our elections by spreading lies about legitimate election results, attempting to overturn a free and fair election, encouraging an attack on our Capitol when he couldn’t accept the will of the voters, and defunding election security at the federal level.
But the governor’s own statement confirmed the core problem Republicans have been warning about.
People who said they were not citizens were still placed on the rolls.
Some voted.
The White House responded by saying the incident proves why Congress must pass the SAVE America Act.
This latest incident underscores the absolute necessity of the SAVE America Act. American voters deserve to have confidence that our elections are safe and secure — President Trump will never stop fighting to make that happen and all patriotic Americans should join in his effort.
Democrats and their media allies have repeatedly said it is impossible for noncitizens to register to vote, let alone cast a ballot. Time and again, they have been proven wrong. As President Trump has said, there is nothing more important than the integrity of our elections.
New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell, who also serves as secretary of state, previously refused the Trump administration’s request for the state’s full unredacted voter file earlier this year.
The Department of Justice sued him over the refusal in February, and the case remains ongoing.
Neither Booker nor Kim has publicly responded to Vance’s direct challenge.
That silence may become harder to defend.
Democrats have claimed for years that voter fraud is rare, noncitizen voting is not a real problem and Republican election bills are about suppression.
New Jersey just blew a hole through that talking point.
The question now is simple: if people who checked “no” on citizenship can still end up registered to vote, why would any senator oppose requiring proof of citizenship?
Republicans are making the answer just as simple.
Pass the SAVE Act.
Clean up the rolls.
And stop pretending election integrity is a conspiracy theory when a blue state just admitted the failure out loud.
POLL: Should Barack And Michelle Obama Stay Out Of Politics?
