Restoring Election Integrity: Oversight of Voter Fraud in New Jersey

Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on voter fraud in the great state of New Jersey. I now will lead us in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. After that, we will remain standing for a moment of silence. I, by believing, We do this for the flag of the United States of America do the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, one nation, under God, under God, indivisible, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing. Before I begin, I just wanted to recognize we have a State Assemblyman from the State of New Jersey, Michael Engenemort. There you are. I was looking for where you were. I I pronounced it correctly, right? He is at the total obstinate of where I am in my district and my home, but He's from the northwestern part of the state. Thank you for being here. I'm gonna recognize myself for an opening statement. I wanna welcome everyone here today for this subcommittee on oversight and judiciary. Today's hearing is an important one. It's important for every American who still believes their vote is supposed to count for something. States like New Jersey have decided that the well-being of illegal immigrants in my opinion is more important than the well-being of American citizens. Evidence of this can be seen, and I'm gonna digress for a minute, bear with me. It paints a picture. Evidence of this can be seen all over my home state, which is a self-proclaimed sanctuary state. On August twenty eighth, a nine month old boy was killed in a grocery store parking lot in Jackson, New Jersey. The driver who struck him had no license, no legal status in the country, and a final order of removal that nobody in the state ever enforced. Governor Sherrill had announced twenty point two millions of fund illegal immigrants, some of them criminals, to fund a legal defense fund for them. Are American taxpayers now going to cover, and that's the question you ask, or are they actually gonna cover some of the legal defense of the two that killed those two toddlers in the in the last month? I guess we'll find out. Nine days ago, a six year old girl was kidnapped out of her own bed in Warren County, New Jersey, kidnapped, taken out of her home and sexually assaulted. Anybody that has children or grandchildren, I think can feel that pain. Six years old, six year old little girl, sexually assaulted, ripped out of her bedroom at home. The man charged in that attack is again in the country illegally. Why was he allowed to be here? Why was he allowed anywhere near that little girl? Why are the citizens of New Jersey forced to ask these questions after the damage is already done? Why are the citizens of New Jersey forced to pay for this? Whose side is New Jersey government on? Cuz it's not the side of that nine month old little boy. And it wasn't the side of that six month little girl. And that's the question hanging over this entire hearing, the whole deal, whose side are you on? What the hell is going on in our state and in our country? What was going on? What are the recent impacts of states offering sanctuary to people that are not citizens of this great country? But the reason we're meeting here today goes even deeper. It's one of the most fundamental and precious and important rights of Americans, and that's voting. And it's more than even just letting violent criminals walk our streets. There is a coordinated effort to provide government documentation to these people and throw out the sanctity of our g- uh great elections by allowing them to register to vote. This hearing's gonna examine how roughly over six thousand new s- citizens, no, I'm sorry, non-citizens, not new citizens, I w- I wish they were, how over six thousand non-citizens were registered to vote in the great state of New Jersey between June twenty, twenty-three, June twenty, twenty-four, how approximately four hundred non-citizens successfully voted in our elections during that time. And almost seven thousand were registered. That we know of. That we know of. Quite frankly, we know there's more. Democrat New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill held a press conference on July twenty one, twenty twenty six, claiming that these improper voter registrations were the result of a system error. So let's take that apart. Let's look into it. During that press conference, Sherrill blamed the Softway vendor, Idemia, and the former Democratic New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy. There's still a lot real lot that we don't know about how this happened and why it took so long for the public to learn about it today just some of the things we don't know what elections these non-citizens voted in federal state or local and it matters you know anybody knows if you file local elections it can be a handful of votes, very often it can even happen in congress but certainly at the local level, five votes, ten votes, three votes They can make a big difference. Four hundred votes can make a big difference. How did the state government let this happen in the first place? Why didn't New Jersey immediately remove these non-citizens from the voter rolls the moment it found out? And why New Jersey waited two full years to tell the American public about any of this? Two years. New Jersey knew in twenty twenty four. They knew in twenty twenty four, they knew in twenty twenty five, they knew in twenty twenty six. And it wasn't corrected until twenty twenty six when the pressure was on from the Department of Homeland Security and their back was against the wall. But twenty twenty four, nothing happened. They knew, didn't do anything about it. Twenty twenty five, they knew, didn't knew anything about it. Twenty twenty six, they knew, didn't do anything about it. didn't inform the public, didn't clean the rolls up until they were forced to, and just held it there. Ladies and gentlemen, in political terms, that's called a cover-up. It means you don't want people to know what's really going on. So what don't we know? We don't know what elections these non-citizens voted in, federal, state, or local. We don't know how the state government let this happen in the first place. We don't know why New Jersey didn't immediately, if you found out, mistakes can happen, it's okay, mistakes happen, but you correct the mistakes, you clean up the mistakes, immediately, as quickly as possible. You don't let them to continue to vote in primary elections, in general elections, over multiple years. Why did they wait two full years to tell the American public? And we don't even know, and we can talk about today, If six thousand six hundred is the real number, it could be higher. These are people, the six thousand six hundred are people who admitted they weren't legal citizens but wanted a vote. I don't know how many folks might be out there that didn't admit they were illegal citizens, got their driver's license, and said they also wanted a vote. This committee in coordination with the House Administration Committee launched investigation into the egregious case of improper voter registrations, we sent letters to New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Dave Caldwell and ho- and and I've spoken to him a little bit. He has been somewhat cooperative, but now he is going, undergoing his own internal investigation in the state of New Jersey. And to IDEMIA, requesting the documents that would show how this happened in an election system, that is supposed to be fair and free. It's America. While IDEMIA has cooperated, they have. We've met with them, we've talked with them numerous times, New Jersey has done everything it can not to cooperate and stonewall the investigation. I sent through another, not through judiciary, but through the Republican study committee, sent a letter to the governor. That was a polite letter. It was an informed letter. asking for information, it wasn't a political letter, and we got a very, very political letter back with no information. Now, thanks to IDEMIA, the software company, we know that the alleged system error was not an issue on IDEMIA's end, but rather an issue prompted by the state of New Jersey. Internal documents show that New Jersey government tested and approved the specic specifications for the IDEMIA software that allowed these illegals to be registered between twenty twenty three and twenty twenty six. They tested it, they approved it, they allowed it. We also know that twenty twenty four IDEMIA received a request from New Jersey after the state finally realized that non-citizens were being registered to vote. So they put in a request to IDEMIA. That means they knew. Ladies and gentlemen, they knew in twenty twenty four. And then for two years, crickets, nothing happened. Just kept on going, kept on voting, kept on doing the same old thing. No public warning, no accounting, no investigations, no information for the voters of New Jersey. Just silence. Republicans forced their hand. That's unfortunate. And by the way, somebody said, " Well, some of the people that may be voting could be Republicans, if some of them are Republicans, I don't care. If they're not legal, they shouldn't be voting. Whether they're a Republican or a Democrat or independent, they shouldn't be voting. This problem exposes real loopholes in federal law, including the National Voter Registration Act, which requires states to offer voter registration materials to people applying for driver's licenses. That's okay. but not for people that are illegals and some cases illegal criminals. Since twenty twenty-three, nineteen states and Washington DC have allowed non-citizens to apply for and obtain driver's licenses, and with that access to voter registration materials, some states even go further and allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. These factors combined with weak voter role maintenance, have made improper registrations like this one more likely, not less likely. I guarantee you, I'll bet anybody, anything, if we looked everywhere in the country, and especially some of the states, we'd find a whole lot more. At the start of his second term, the president signed two executive orders imposing criminal penalties for non-citizen voting and giving the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies access for verification and thank goodness he did, whether you like it or not, cuz it allowed DHS and secretary to go shed light on the mess and it forced a public revelation that had been covered up that illegal people had voted in elections and had registered thousands of them. This committee is gonna do everything it can to continue getting to the bottom of how this was allowed to happen. It's simple only. Um, my, It really is simple. Only Americans should vote in American elections. Not complicated. It's just as simple that American children should be safe in a grocery store, parking lot, where they should be safe in their own beds, where they should be safe walking to school, they should be safe on the streets, in their homes, in their vehicles. They should be safe. It's America. It shouldn't, this shouldn't be. What I'm saying now, honest to God, shouldn't be a partisan So I'm gonna ask one more time as we sit here and think about this, whose side are we on? I know the side, I believe I know the side, this committee, or at least the majority of this committee is on. I would like New Jersey to finally tell us all the information whose side it is onto. If there is nothing to hide, if there is nothing to see there, there should be no problem. Just turn it over. Let the sunshine in. Let the light come. And let's find out. I thank the witnesses for being here today, and we look forward to hearing your testimony too. We will introduce you in a little while as well. I now recognize a ranking member, Miss Crockett, for an opening statement.

Thank you so very much, uh, Mister Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here. Definitely thank you to, um, our tireless elected official who decided to travel to DC for this hearing. Um, you know, it seems like we continue to have hearings that are offering solutions in search of a problem. And today I wanna make sure that we focus on real problems, not these that are kind of somewhere swarming around uh, in the theoretical world. In forty-nine days, you, the American people can end this country's toxic, narcissistic relationship with unified Republican control of government. Now that they're back from their creepy cult convention that took place in my district right there in Dallas, the Republican love bombing is in full effect. They're offering y'all five thousand dollars, yes, five thousand dollars. put the Republicans back in control like they are right now, make sure that they continue to maintain control of the House, make sure they continue to maintain control of the Senate, and make sure that they still are sitting in the White House. And unfortunately, we will never have enough spines in this building or the other to make sure that we can evict the person who never should have been re-elected, but that's a whole other issue. But let's talk about the conversation around five thousand dollars being offered by president of the United States at this interim convention. Some who know the law may say that, well, it's against the law. I have some that don't know the law would actually say it as well. It sounds like a bribe because it is a bribe. In fact, we call it vote buying or vote bribing. That is what the president of the United States decided to do, yet our conversation is going to be or at least my good friend the chairman wants it to be, about the quote unquote problem with the illegals. And I'm doing quotes for a reason, y'all. They wanna blame the Biden administration for Trump's cost of living crisis, telling you that immigrants or trans people are the reason for all your problems, and how only they can help improve your life. Y'all, if they wanted to do that, they would, they wouldn't need you to vote them back into office. They could actually effectuate real change. But let's, go through the record, because I want to tell you about some of the problems they've caused, right? The fact that they actually are in control of every lever of government has led to not only American citizens being killed on the streets by ICE, but also so many immigrants. In fact, we are at a historic high as relates to immigrant deaths. Um, we could talk about the unconstitutional illegal war that's taken place in Iran that has only happened again because they control every lever of government. and frankly it is costing us American lives as well as plenty of our tax dollars. We could talk about the big ugly bill that for a number of people has made them be put into a position in which they can't afford health care and if they can afford the health care it's only gone through the roof or we can talk about some of their other failed promises we can talk about the fact that they offered a doge check. I know that you may not remember doge but doge was the thing that Elon was gonna do to save us all kinds of money, but if I run you back to our actual debt, let me tell you, it ain't going down, it's going up a lot. And you still didn't get your doge check. Uh, or we can talk about the tariffs, cuz the tariffs were illegal as well. Actually not were, they are. They're illegal and they made the cost of everything go up. So that's probably why he's offering the five thousand dollars, cuz you've been out of way more than five thousand dollars, but nevertheless, it's his fault. And so He said y'all were gonna get a tariff check. Now listen, my bank account works a little different. Maybe y'all got it and I didn't, but last time I checked, I don't know anybody that got a dose check nor a tariff check, so I really would not fall for this new scheme of offering five thousand dollars. Not to mention it is illegal, so I think we should have a hearing, Mister Chairman, about whether or not we are gonna enforce the law on uh people that attempt to do, but I will continue on. Gas is more than four thousand, I'm sorry, four dollars nationally. Diesel fuel is the highest it's ever been. We're still at war. The DOJ is still protecting pedophiles and hiding at least half of the Epstein files, again in violation of federal law. Trump is still trading stocks while in office. Republican-led states are removing hundreds of thousands of people from their voter rolls including in a state like mine where in Texas they put, um, over a million people in suspense. in Texas. Let me tell you what else they did in Texas, cuz this is what Republicans do when they have control. They decided in Tarrant County, our third largest county, our county that is trending the right way in Texas, they decided between the primary and the general election, because Republicans were behind Democrats by approximately forty thousand votes, which means that they were now gonna be knocked out of power, they said, " Let's cut one third of the voting centers, let's make it more difficult for people to vote. That sounds like a problem to me, but I guess the Republicans will continue to remain silent about those things. The Republicans in fact want you to ignore it all. They want you to believe that there are thousands of non-citizens voting in elections. Over the past forty-four years, only one hundred of the more than one billion votes cast in presidential elections have been potential voter fraud. Let me repeat that. One hundred of the more than one billion, with a B, votes cast in presidential elections have been potential voter fraud. And in states that have conducted audits of their state elections, only seven hundred of the more than one hundred and forty million votes have been associated with noncitizens. Let me just say, Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files thirty eight thousand times. That's more than fifty three times the amount of alleged non-citizen votes in state elections and more than three hundred times the amount of potential voter fraud in presidential elections. I'm just saying, if your name is mentioned thirty eight time, thirty eight thousand times alongside sexual predators, you're probably guilty of something, but I digress. Trump always made more than twenty-one, he's already made more than twenty-one thousand stock trades in just one year in office, more than thirty times the amount of non-citizens in state elections, and more than two hundred times more than non-citizen votes in presidential elections over the past forty-four years. Yet Republicans still haven't held a single hearing on that topic. Look, we all know that the president is the biggest threat to democracy. He's trying to use ICE and the military police so that they can be at polling sites and intimidate people. He's tried to overturn birthright citizenship. He tried to have the Postal Service disrupt voting by mail. He dismantled the Election Assistance Commission. He's making federal agents investigate elections instead of terrorism and human trafficking. Not to mention, he's the one that started this fight with the mid-decade redistricting so that he could steal more power. And he literally tried to steal the twenty twenty election. Some people forgot because, well, he ain't being prosecuted right now, but that's a very real thing. He's not just a threat to democracy. He's also the biggest threat to Americans' financial security. The only reason Americans would need the five thousand dollar bribe, cuz that's what it is, is because of his failed policies. The average American family is paying an additional thirty-five hundred dollars per year for basic necessities under Republicans. More than four million Americans have lost their SNAP benefits in just the first year of the Big Ugly Bill. Eight million Americans lost their Affordable Care Act health care. Farmer bankruptcies are up almost fifty percent. And nearly every Republican supported the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. So check your voter registration and check it often and make a plan to vote. Don't let them scare you away from the polls over the next forty invi forty nine days. Also, don't fall for the lies and distractions. And the final thing that I wanna do, and I'm gonna enter this into the record as well, without objection, of course, Well, what's your is I have this I have this article. Listen, it's just facts. I have this article that is from the Washington Post. And the article, the title of the article says, Trump, and this is on nine eleven, Trump asks convention crowd to pledge to him they will vote, otherwise cheat like hell. I'm sorry, but we do need to have a real conversation about cheating in elections, but it doesn't start with the immigrants. It may need to start at the top with the president. who literally announced on national TV after he offered a bribe for votes, he then told people otherwise, cheat like hell. Just remember that. And, Mister Chairman, I'd be happy to have that hearing any day.

Are you

I yield back.

Are you in tune with that? And so we're to the record with that without objection.

Yes. Thank you.

Mister Chairman.

Thank you. Yes, I recognize a gentleman from Missouri.

I have a unanimous consent um reslu um um a motion. Um.

Without objection.

Thank you. First, from Politico, July twenty first, thousands of non-citizens registered to vote in New Jersey due to software error, govern- governor says. Um, next from the Department of Homeland Security on July seventeenth, DHS Secretary M- uh Mark Wayne Mullen sends letters to secretaries of state warning about non-citizens on voter rows. And um, then from Politico on on uh July twenty eighth, Mickey Sherrill refuses G DOJ demand for data on New Jersey non-citizen voters citing privacy laws.

Without objection. With that, I'm going to ask, Mister Jordan is coming back in a little while, so we are gonna go right to the ranking member of the committee of the whole, Mister Raskin, for his for his opening statement.

Thank you kindly, Mister Chairman. Welcome to all of our witnesses today. Um, I'm still waiting for my five thousand dollar doge check. uh, Miss Crockett in the two thousand dollar tariff check,

We have the money.

so I I'm not sure they're gonna be able to

Re- respectfully, I'm having a little fun here. I think everybody got it except you.

Right. Well, you'll have to share it with me.

I don't know why that is, but

Yeah.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Um, l- look, um, the the president, um, clearly wants to determine the results of this election by engaging in anything other than just persuasion, that he's got a program and he's got policies that will benefit the American people. So they're trying mid-decade gerrymandering, extreme gerrymandering. Even that seems to be boomeranging against them, uh, in Texas, uh, as a number of the districts that the president thought were gonna be custom-made for him to take back Congress, uh, now are rejecting that ploy against democracy. Uh, voter suppression laws and, of course, extraordinary efforts at executive branch interference with the administration of elections in the States. But the Supreme Court yesterday rejected in a seven to two decision the president's key gambit of trying to block mail-in balloting in the States, finding that he had no likelihood of success on the merits because of course, the president simply has no constitutional role in the administration of elections, much less does the post office, other than just to deliver the mails. Um, there is no power to compel the states of the United States to submit their voter lists, with all of the private information included, to the federal government for the federal government's inspection. And there would be severe and irreparable harm caused by throwing fifty different monkey wrenches into the administration of elections in the last eight weeks. So he could not even get it through what he thought was his safely stacked and packed Supreme Court so pro-Trump extreme that they dealt him, for the first time in American history, immunity uh for violent or ever for any felony crimes committed uh under the auspices of his office. So in some sense, uh, this is over. I'm afraid This hearing is in ideological service of a scheme that was repudiated yesterday in the Supreme Court. It was uh defeated. My colleagues to me appear a little bit like those Confederate soldiers who were off in the forest when the surrendered Appomattox took place, and they just kept fighting for weeks and months. Um, they wanted to convince us that our electoral system is riddled with fraud, and we should turn it over to the thirty-four count convicted felon fraudster to run our elections instead. That's what's gonna work. Um, but, uh, it's not working. Um, they have tried to compel, um, dozens and dozens of states to turn over their state, uh, voter rolls. The states have rejected it. Both blue states and red states and purple states have rejected it. And the administration has been repudiated in two dozen different courts um in this effort. All right, but here we are, what is our last subcommittee hearing in the infamously unproductive a hundred and nineteenth Congress uh about today? It's about a clerical error by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, a clerical error that was caught not by the US Post Office, not by President Trump and uh his team of crack prosecutors at the Department of Justice who've had no fewer than a dozen of their vindictive and selective Trump-ordered political prosecutions and investigations thrown out of court or quashed for people like James Comey, Letitia James, Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly, Maggie Goodlander, Jason Crow, Alyssa Slotkin, or take, for example, my constituent, Davey Hearn, the three-time Olympian, canoeist, and beloved teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland, who was set up on completely bogus, trumped-up charges of felony destruction of federal property because he put his hand in the reflecting pool and they were looking for someone else to blame for the toxic algae that has spread through the pool because of all of the mismanagement and incompetence of Donald Trump's pool guy from Mar-a-Lago who got the sixteen million dollar uh insider no-bid contract. to work on that. So it was not any of those prosecutors who determined that there was a problem, uh, in New Jersey. No, um, they they were working on more important things. No, the clerical error that we convene to discuss today was discovered and announced publicly, by the New Jersey state government itself. Federalism in action. And this mistake did not affect the outcome of a single election in New Jersey, from borough counselor or township committee person to governor. Some sixty-six hundred New Jersey non-citizen residents were improperly registered to vote for one year because of a software computer error made by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission these non-citizens had not done anything wrong the software erroneously placed them on the voter rolls four hundred of them or one in seventeen actually voted. There's no evidence that the outcome of any race was swayed by these votes which constituted less than one hundredth of one percent of the over four million votes cast in New Jersey in twenty twenty four. It's obviously unacceptable and egregious that even this small mistake occurred. It is federal law that US citizens and only US citizens can vote in our federal elections, and the previous New Jersey governor and administration should have informed the public of this blunder sooner, even if mathematically it had no impact. or could have had no impact on the outcome of any race. But no matter how much our colleagues seek to inflate it, a clerical error is not structural corruption, much less is it a criminal conspiracy. It does not rise to the level of, say, a violent insurrection, deliberately incited and organized to overthrow a completed presidential election, or a coercive effort to get the Vice President of the United States to reject the electoral college votes cast by the president. by millions of people in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states. It is not an act of attempted criminal fraud in the voting system, like telling the secretary of state of Georgia, just find me eleven thousand seven hundred and eighty votes. That's not an attempt to block voter fraud, that's an attempt to commit voter fraud. Governor Sherrill, our former colleague here in the house, has been commendably forthcoming about how the mistake in her state occurred, and if she is demanding precise answers about the whole snafu. After announcing its existence publicly, her administration has taken aggressive remediation efforts. She's not doubling down on trying to promote voter fraud. She is coming clean about what happened in the past and is taking aggressive efforts to rectify it to ensure that all voter roles are accurate today, and will be accurate in the future. The state continues to investigate how it happened, contracting with a private law firm. to lead an outside investigation headed up by a Republican former US attorney, Jeffrey Chiesa. And it is committed to sharing the results of that investigation with all of the people of New Jersey. If only the Trump administration were as willing to identify and admit its mistakes and try to fix them rather than doubling down on its errors and its voter suppression schemes with comical lies and bravado, they're still denying that Joe Biden won the election in twenty twenty, where he beat Donald Trump by more than seven million votes, three hundred and sixty-two thirty-two in the electoral college. And they continue to lie about that to this day. When the Iran war sent inflationary shockwaves to our economy, driving up gasoline prices by more than a dollar a gallon, Donald Trump never admitted his colossal blunder in going around congressional authority to declare war, it's only the power of Congress to declare war. So he got us into a stupid, self-defeating, counter-productive, costly inflationary war. Have they admitted it? No, they've denied it. They've claimed victory, I don't know, a dozen times. They're all over the map with it. When their ice agents shot dead two American citizens in cold blood on the streets of Minneapolis did they admit the mistake and come clean and say we're gonna do a thorough, complete investigation and open up to the public, not for one second. Is DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who spent hundreds of millions of d- of our dollars on customized jets with bedrooms and full bars and PR stunts like photo shoots of her riding horseback at Mount Rushmore, called the victims of government violence domestic terrorists. And they have never apologized, either for their original act or for defaming the people they killed. You get the point. When over a hundred of the January six rioters, pardoned en masse by Donald Trump, went out and criminally re-offended, including by sexually assaulting and exploiting twelve-year-old children, robbing houses with domestic invasions, strangling people, threatening to kill FBI agents. Donald Trump never once confessed his dangerous error or did anything to rectify it. He didn't apologize to anybody. Governor Sherrill is showing how real leaders take responsibility for the mistakes of government, even if it wasn't her mistake. She takes responsibility for what the government of New Jersey did. That's what we can trust, but we can't trust somebody who just covers it all up. Some people in magazines wanna use this uh isolated mistake in New Jersey to restrict and blockade the voting rights of millions of Americans. But the facts are clear. Non-citizen voting is exceedingly rare. It's an accident if it does take place overwhelmingly, and it is resulted in the places where it's happened with just as many votes for Donald Trump as for somebody not voting for Donald Trump. But the majority is determined to force through it an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem. They promoted the Save Act as the only way to address this imaginary crisis, despite every independent analysis not only confirming that non-citizen voting is remarkably rare but the Save Act, would lead to millions of Americans being thrown off of the voter rolls. This drive is not about ensuring the integrity of elections. If it were, Trump would not have gutted the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agency, would not have disbanded the DOJ and FBI foreign influence threats task force. He would not have fired the head of the, uh, US Cyber Command. Donald Trump has hollowed out the structural safeguards in our electoral process, and will point to the damage he's caused as further proof that the our elections cannot be trusted. So, this is not about election integrity, this is about his continuing but fortunately foiled plan to try and disrupt and undermine our electoral process before we vote on November third. We encourage all fellow Americans, whatever your politics, whatever your party, to make sure that you exercise your right to vote, including by taking advantage, of early voting and mail-in balloting as Donald Trump himself did in Florida, and do not buy all of the last-minute propaganda and distortion and offensives against American political democracy. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, and without objection, all of the opening statements will be included in the record. We're now gonna introduce today's witnesses. Thank you all for being here. I know you have busy schedules and we truly do appreciate your time. and your expertise. Start with Josh Findlay. And if I mispronounce anybody's name, feel free to tell me, cuz I do that all the time. Mister Findlay is a senior fellow for election integrity policy at the America First Policy Institute. He is also the director of the election protection project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He's worked for more than a decade on election administration, both for campaigns and national political committees. Welcome. Mister Justin Reimer, correct? Okay. Mister Reimer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections. He previously served as the Deputy Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections. Welcome. Mister Jason Senna. Mister Senna is a partner at Archer and Greiner, where he is a member of the state and local government and political law and compliance practice groups. His clients include municipal governments, independent authorities, counties, political parties, and political committees, and political candidates. Welcome. Mister Stephen Richer, correct?

Correct.

Okay. Mister Richer is a legal fellow at the Cato Institute. His work focuses on election administration, American democracy, executive orders, and American politics. We're gonna begin, welcome, welcome. We will begin by swearing you all in, please rise and raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information and belief? So help you God. You may be seated. Let the ref- record reflect that the witnesses have answered, in the affirmative. I want you all to know, please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record, it's in in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. Mister Finlay, we're gonna begin with you.

Good afternoon, Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and members of the subcommittee on oversight of the US House Judiciary Committee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. Any vote cast by a non-citizen dilutes the vote of an American citizen. That is voter suppression. The left has claimed for years that citizenship verification is unnecessary because non-citizens rarely appear on voter lists and they almost never vote. However, recently in New Jersey, almost four hundred New Jersey citizens had their votes canceled out by a non-citizen. And that's what we know of. Even a small number of illegal votes matters. In twenty twenty-five alone, New Jersey had at least three races decided by one vote. or less. Warnings about weaknesses in the state's voter registration system and non-citizens on its lists had been raised for months. In fact, in some instances it seems that registering non-citizens to vote may have been a feature of the system and not a glitch, as the governor called it. In May, two democratic states two state senators noted that people who identified themselves as non-citizens in the state's on-line driver voter registration system were being prompted to vote. The senators proposed straightforward legislation. People who identify as non-citizens should not be asked to register to vote. It seems shocking that the state needed legislation to fix a system that prompted people to break the law. A month later, the New Jersey Republican Party Election Integrity Task Force identified hundreds of non-citizens were registered to vote, with at least thirty documented cases of non-citizens illegally casting votes in some clay- cases across multiple elections. and for many years. In New Jersey the problem was built into the process. The default should be that voters must verify their eligibility before being added to lists, not that people are added to lists and then we hope that the state catches them. Even small numbers matter. They decide races and disenfranchise US citizens. And New Jersey may just be the tip of the iceberg on this issue. These questions are not only being raised in New Jersey, in fact they're common among states with less secure election laws. In California, the Secretary of State's office admitted that it does not contain a voter status reason for registration cancellation due to non-citizenship. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, twenty-four states in the District of Columbia automatically register voters and add drivers to voters' lists. In states like Massachusetts and Michigan, applicants can be automatically enrolled through motor vehicle transactions rather than being required to affirmatively register to vote. Last October during a hearing, Minnesota State Representative Patty Anderson asked Elections Director Paul Linnell if the twenty twenty-three legislation that gave drivers licenses to illegal aliens would enable those illegal aliens to vote. His silence was deafening. That should seem incredible, not commonplace. Automatic voter registration represents a risk to non-citizens as well. Section two thirty-seven A six of the Immigration and Nationality which was signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, says, " Any alien who has voted in violation of federal, state, or local constitutional provision, statute, ordinance, or regulation is deportable." People who support the so-called rights of illegal aliens should ask themselves, if your state gives driver's licenses to non-citizens, automatically registers them to vote and then mails them a val- a ballot because they're on voter lists aren't you endangering the very population that you allegedly support? Section three O three of the Help America Vote Act, requires states to register voters with their driver's license or social security numbers. If an applicant for voter registration does not have one of those, the law requires states to assign a unique identifying number and register the voter anyway. Policymakers should consider who wouldn't have a driver's license or social security number and ask why such a loophole exists. For- fortunately, section three O three also provides states with a solution. The state shall determine whether the information provided by an individual is sufficient to meet the requirements, States have the ability to require proof of citizenship, under this law already passed by Congress. The answer to the problem is not to remove names after they appear on voter lists, but rather to prevent improper registrations. That's why Congress needs to pass the Save America Act, to ensure that only eme- eligible citizens can participate in American elections. Requiring proof of citizenship would fix the problem of accidental illegal voter registrations. In many cases the problem starts before an applicat- applicant reaches

Thank you, Mr. Findlay. Thank you, Mr. Findlay. Mr. Reimer, you may begin. Mr. Reimer, you may begin.

Thank you, Chairman, Ranking Member Crockett, and committee members. Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections is an organization that investigates and litigates on election administration issues nationwide. RITE is focused on non-citizen registration issues since its founding, and I hope that experience is helpful as the committee examines this issue. The state recently New Jersey recently acknowledged that about sixty-six hundred people were registered to vote even after they answered no on the citizenship citizenship question at the Motor Vehicle Commission. At least three hundred and forty then went on to vote. The state found the defect in June of twenty twenty four and then left the registrations in place and said nothing publicly for two years. The state blames its vendor. Even accepting that, it misses the real problem. New Jersey did not design its automatic registration system to actually verify citizenship. The front-end front-end of the system relies solely on an attestation of citizenship without any further verification. The attestation was the only safeguard in New Jersey, and these applicants never even gave one. N- New Jersey caught this only by chance and only after a year. There's a c- that represents there's only no there's no back-end safeguards that could have caught it any sooner. Officiali- officials only noticed that thousands of records were missing a party affiliation not because they had any mechanism in place to detect the non-citizen registrants. And although officials patched the system so that those answering no to the citizenship question would not be registered to vote. The state took no steps to remove those voters for over two years. The irony is that DMV registration should be the most secure method we have. Those who obtain a Real ID license must provide uh proof of identity and legal presence in the US. And many of those documents would confirm an individual citizenship before they are even offered registration. But New Jersey's process ignores those documents entirely. An applicant can hand an MVC worker a green card, a document that conclusively establishes they're a non-citizen and still be offered voter registration. Even worse, the person has to opt out of registering. Instead of fixing this, New Jersey recently passed legislation to expand automatic registration. This partly acknowledges the current system's weakness. For Real ID applicants, it will only automatically register those who provide documentation indicating citizenship. But it gets there by taking other safeguards away, registering people first, and then letting them opt out only after the fact. And it leaves the current vulnerability wide open for those obtaining standard non-real I non-real ID licenses who will still be offered registration regardless of the documentation they provide. Oregon runs the same back-end opt-out system New Jer- New Jersey is currently implement uh replicating their DM st- DMV staff misrecorded which documents and nearly two thousand of them ended up on the rolls that never proved their eligibility. With no attestation backstop, Oregon didn't catch the mistake for three years. New Jersey has shown that some sta- some states do not take non-voter- do not take non-citizen registration seriously, and federal law does not compel them to. It does prohibit non-citizens from registering and voting, but it gives states few tools to enforce that ban by making it difficult to verify citizenship or remove non-citizens already registered. That is why Congress must act. First, it should pass real citizenship verification requirements. The Save America Act would bar a state from registering those who do not provide documentary proof of citizenship. And because the New Jersey applicants presented none, none, it would have kept them off the rolls. But even narrower reforms, directed specifically at DMV registration, would plug a huge hole, such as requiring state agencies like DMV's offer registration only to those who provide proof of citizenship, or at least prohibiting agencies from offering voter registration to those who provide documents indicating non-citizenship. Congress should also require states to use the Department of Homeland Security's save system, to identify non-citizens already on the rolls, and to codify the Trump administration's efforts to make it free and expand its capabilities. Congress could also amend the Help America Vote Act to verify citizenship using the license and social security data states already collect during registration. It could also require states to develop programs to remove non-citizens just as they must for removing deceased and non-resident voters. It could also clarify that the National Voter Registration Act's pre- pre-election blackout periods, restricting certain list mait- act- m- list maintenance activities do not apply to removing non-citizens. My written testimony also recommends

Thank you very much, Mr. Reimer. Mr. Sena, you may begin.

Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the apparent causes of improper voter registration of non-citizens in New Jersey. A way of background, I am a licensed attorney in New Jersey, I practice in the area of election law, have been practicing for approximately fifteen years, and I'm a registered voter in my state. I follow this issue closely. Everything I'm going to talk to you about today and what's in my testimony is a matter of public record and I'm certainly happy to answer any follow-up questions that the committee may have. As the committee is aware, in July two thousand twenty-six, the state of New Jersey publicly admitted that roughly six thousand six hundred people who indicated they were not US citizens between June twenty-twenty-three and June twenty-twenty-four were registered to vote w- pursuant to what was described as a quote " serious software error in New Jersey's motor vehicle system." The state's decision to publicly come forward with this information, which was known for years, seems to have been precipitated by two things. Secretary Mullen's letter to our governor concerning the potential registration of non-citizens in New Jersey and a due diligence performed by a major political party involving public records request which revealed the presence, as a matter of fact, of non-citizens on our voter rolls. Despite the state's admission, publicly available information indicates that non-citizens were permitted to register to vote outside of that time frame and through other non-MVC methods, which confirms as a matter of fact that the problem is bigger than the state has admitted. The first point that I'll discuss is that state law requires election officials, not the MVC, to determine voter eligibility. The state blamed the MVC software vendor here for providing for causing, excuse me, the alleged software error resulting in non-registration, registration of non-citizens. This attempt to blame the vendor for unlawfully registering non-citizens is based on a false premise that the MVC itself performs the registration. It does not. It transmits voter information to that that it collects to election officials who then perform the ministerial nondiscretionary tasks of determining voter eligibility and once confirmed, registering the applicant. It's clear here that at some level that verification did not occur, although state law and certainly federal law requires it. This unfortunate situation vindicates the concerns raised by opponents of the legislation that led to automatic voter registration at the MVC. In two thousand and nineteen, the New Jersey legislature held committee hearings on the bill that was before them at that time. During that hearing, then MVC Administrator Sue Fulton answered questions of members of that committee concerning the capabilities of the system that was being proposed. During her testimony she assured members of the legislature that non-citizens would not be able to register to vote, although they would be able to get driver's licenses, and the chairm- the chair of that committee made similar representations on the record. it was affirmatively represented to the members of our legislature that the secretary of state and county election officials would be the ones to determine voter eligibility. Clearly that did not occur here. As I alluded to earlier, the problem is much broader than the state admits. It's not, to the extent that it is an MVC software error, the problem is not limited to the software error at issue here. For example, public records provided by county election offices in the counties of Hudson and Bergen, two of the state's most densely populated counties, confirm that non-citizens registered to vote before and after the time frame that we're discussing here and through means other than the MVC. This confirms that the temporal scope of the problem is greater than the state admitted, and that the problem is not just limited to the MVC. Finally, the state's list maintenance practices here are questionable. What we know already confirms that that's the case. It's clear that non-citizens h- non-citizens have been registered to vote in New Jersey in violation of law. The means to prevent this from occurring in the future exist. State law requires election official to verify voter eligibility including citizenship. Our election officials need to have the necessary tools available to them to do that. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any commit- questions that the committee may have.

Thank you, Mr. Sena. Mr. Ritcher, you may begin.

Thank you. Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I serve as the elected Republican Maricopa County Recorder from January twenty twenty one until January twenty twenty five where I was responsible for voter registration, and early voting for the four point six million people in that county. I am now a legal fellow at the Cato Institute, a lecturer and fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center, and the CEO of consulting firm Republic Affairs. Let me begin by saying that I do not think that there is anything inherently wrong with requiring documented proof of citizenship to vote in the United States. Arizona, my home state, has had a documented proof of citizenship requirement for over twenty years. But as with all public policy proposals, there are trade-offs. There are costs and there are benefits. To make these calculations, we must first have a clear understanding of the facts. And to date, all evidence suggests that non-citizen voting in American elections is a minute phenomenon. I am aware of at least twenty-nine non-citizen voter audits performed by states and counties since the beginning of twenty twenty one. In May of this year, Utah published its findings from a year-long audit of the state's two point one million registered voters. The state found twenty-seven confirmed non-citizens on the voter rolls. Twenty-seven. That's point zero zero one percent. And in Michigan, the secretary of state recently audited the approximately seven hundred and twenty-five thousand registered voters in Macomb County. That audit found four apparent non-citizens, including one who had actually voted. No thorough professional audit has found that non-citizens constitute anything even close to a tenth of a percent of the state's voter population. Recent federal law enforcement efforts affirm the comparatively microscopic nature of non-citizen voting. According to reporting from the New York Times, Fox and Reuters, the federal government has mobilized hundreds of highly skilled law enforcement agents to investigate election fraud, especially non-citizen voting. The results have been entirely consistent with the audits I just mentioned. According to reporting from Pro Publica, between January twenty twenty-five and May twenty twenty-six, the federal government charged forty-one non-citizens with voting illegally or other election-related crimes. Those who allege widespread non-citizen voting have little support for their position. They often point out that in most states documented proof of citizenship isn't required. And while that's true, that doesn't mean that non-citizens are actually registering or voting. Or they point to indiscriminate analyses that use commercial data without personal identifying information such as social security numbers or driver's license number. They allege a certain number of non-citizens voting, but they never show their work, and they don't investigate individual voter files. Turning to the specific situation of New Jersey, it is the largest finding of registered non-citizens of which I am aware. But by all reports, it was the result not of attempted fraud, but of a software problem caused by imperfect human beings. Six thousand six hundred lawful residents of New Jersey checked a box saying they are not citizens. But the software instead marked them as citizens and election officials then registered them as voters. This was a mistake and it should be fixed as with any other mistake that happens in government. But some have used this software error to make bold sweeping statements about American elections. Some have said, " See, this is why we need documented proof of citizenship." But that wouldn't have fixed the problem. I know this because in Arizona, we have a documented proof of citizenship requirement, and yet we had a very similar pr- problem when the software tying the motor vehicle division with the state election office said certain voters had provided documented proof of citizenship when in fact they had not. And some say, see, this is proof of widespread non-citizen voting. But again, this was a coding mistake. Six thousand six hundred people got improperly registered. Three hundred and forty of those voted in at least one election. But for context, there are six point six eight million registered voters in New Jersey, and four point three million of them voted in November, twenty twenty four. Even in this scenario, this worst-case scenario, non-citizens made up a fraction of a percent of voters. American elections are accessible, secure, and accurate. We should be proud. Nonetheless, we should continue to improve American elections, And we should have conversations about documented proof of citizenship, but we must be honest about the reality of non-citizens voting. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Richard. One thing I'm gonna disagree with you on, um, respectfully, is the State of New Jersey never said they were citizens, nor did the software say they were citizens. It just moved on and allowed them to be registered. You can check into that. Okay, thank you. Um, with that, I am gonna ask, I'm gonna recognize the gentleman from Missouri.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Voting is one of the hallmarks of citizenship. It is a cherished right and our constitution and our laws reserve it for citizens. That line has been carefully guarded and it should stay that way if this country wa- remonts wants to maintain free, fair and secure elections. What happened in Missouri is not an isolated failure. Roughly sixty-six hundred people that's not an isolated failure, who said they were not citizens were placed on the voter rolls and four hundred ultimately cast ballots. The state blames the vendor, the vendor blames the state, but ultimately the error ran for a year before it was fixed and it took two more years before the public was told. New York shows us this the problem is not only administrative, the New York City Council passed a law to let non-citizens v- nonsitizens voted municipal elections and defended it all the way to the state's highest court. Verifying citizenship at the point of registration shouldn't be controversial. These are common sense safeguards. Why wouldn't we do that? And they would make sure that only eligible American citizens decide the future of our country. Uh, Adrienne Adams cosponsored and voted for the law that law, that that law when she was a member of the New York City Council. And as Speaker, she took the counsel's case all the way to the Court of Appeals. This February, Governor Holcomb made her the Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of New York. This is not a fringe position in the Democrat party. It is on the ballot in November. You know, I this issue of election integrity is something that in the Missouri legislature we discussed for many years um twice our activist Missouri Supreme Court struck down voter ID laws, for instance, we finally got it done in my final year in the Missouri Senate in twenty twenty two. The arguments from my Democrat colleagues are always, it never happens. There is no voter fraud, it never happens. There i- no illegal, no alien has ever been registered to vote. No alien has ever voted. New Jersey tells us otherwise. Mister Sena, can you tell us a little more about the case in New Jersey? Um, how do we how do we distinguish between unintentional software or administrative glitches and intentional efforts to improperly register aliens, or cast votes?

Mister Honor, I think you'd have to look to the point of registration. You know, it's hard to say, as I sit here today, how to know what somebody's intentions were.

Right.

when they go a- at the point of registration but I think we know here that the problem is broader in scope than the state government has come forward and publicly said.

Yes.

There are, and this is all through public matters of public record that were obtained from county election offices, uh indicate that people um intentionally or unintentionally registered to vote through the MVC or otherwise before this time window that was set up, uh and after, and that they, it was just a matter of fact, they registered.

Yes. Yes.

Um, whether they meant to do it or not,