New Jersey Voter Fraud Oversight Hearing — September 15, 2026

12:55Subcommittee 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.

13:13After that, we will remain standing for a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

13:38Please remain standing. Before I begin, I just wanted to recognize we have a state assemblyman from the state of New Jersey, Michael Ingenemort. There you are. I was looking for where you were. I pronounced it correctly, right?

14:15He is at the total opposite end of where I am in my district and my home, but he's from in the northwestern part of the state. Thank you for being here. I'm gonna recognize myself for an opening statement.

14:26I 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.

14:41States 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 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 sanctuary state On August 28th a nine boy was killed in a grocery store parking lot in Jackson New Jersey.

15:11The 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. Sherrill had announced $20.2 million to fund illegal immigrants, some of them criminals, to fund a legal defense fund for them.

15:36Are American taxpayers now going to cover—and that's the question you ask—are they actually going to cover some of the legal defense of the two that killed those two toddlers in the last month? I guess we'll find out.

15:49Nine days ago, a six-year-old girl was kidnapped out of her own bed in Warren County, New Jersey. taken out of her home and sexually assaulted. Anybody that has children or grandchildren, I think can feel that pain.

16:03Six 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?

16:20Why 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?

16:34Whose side is New Jersey government on? Because 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.

16:50Whose 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?

17:04But 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.

17:19there is a coordinated effort to provide government documentation to these people and throw out the sanctity of our great elections by allowing them to register to vote This hearing is gonna examine how roughly over 6 new citizens no I sorry non not new citizens, I wish they were, how over 6,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in the great state of New Jersey between June 2023, June 2024, how approximately 400 non-citizens successfully voted in our elections during that time, and almost 7,000 were registered, that we know of.

18:06That we know of. Quite frankly, we know there's more. Democrat New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill held a press conference on July 21, 2026, claiming that these improper voter registrations were the result of a system error.

18:24So let's take that apart, let's look into it. During that press conference, Sheryl blamed the soft way vendor, Idemia, and the former Democratic New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy. There's still a lot, a real lot, that we don't know about how this happened and why it took so long for the public to learn about it.

18:45To date, 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 follow local elections, they can be a handful of votes very often.

19:01It can even happen in Congress, but certainly at the local level, five votes, 10 votes, three votes, they can make a big difference.

19:09400 votes can make a big difference.

19:12How 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?

19:32New Jersey knew in 2024. They knew in 2024, they knew in 2025, they knew in 2026. And it wasn't corrected until 2026 when the pressure was on from the Department of Homeland Security and their back was against the wall.

19:52But 2024, nothing happened. They knew, didn't do anything about it. 2025, they knew, didn't do anything about it. 2026, 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.

20:09Ladies 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.

20:28We 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.

20:38You 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?

20:58and we don't even know and we can talk about today if 6 600 is the real number it could be higher these are people the 6 600 are people who admitted they weren't legal citizens but wanted to 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.

21:22This committee in coordination with the House Administration Committee launched an investigation into the egregious case of improper voter registrations. We sent letters to New Jersey Lieutenant Governor Dave Caldwell, and I've spoken to him a little bit.

21:42He has been somewhat cooperative, but now he is 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.

22:02It'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.

22:23That was a polite letter It was an informed letter asking for information It wasn 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.

22:48Internal documents show that New Jersey government tested and approved the specifications for the Idemia software that allowed these illegals to be registered between 2023 and 2026. They tested it, they approved it, they allowed it.

23:06We also know that 2024, 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.

23:19Ladies and gentlemen, they knew in 2024. 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.

23:44Republicans forced their hand. That's unfortunate. And by the way, somebody said, some of the people that may be voting could be Republicans, that 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.

24:02They 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, in some cases, illegal criminals.

24:27Since 2023, 19 states in Washington, D.C. 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.

24:45These factors combined with weak voter role maintenance have made improper registrations like this one more likely not less likely I guarantee you I bet anybody anything we looked everywhere in the country and especially some of the states we'd find a whole lot more.

25:09At 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, because it allowed DHS and Secretary to shed light on the mess, and it forced the public revelation that had been covered up that illegal people had voted in elections and had registered thousands of them.

25:40This committee is going to do everything it can to continue getting to the bottom of how this was allowed to happen. It's 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.

26:09They should be safe. It's America. This shouldn't be, what I'm saying now, honest to God, shouldn't be a partisan statement. You heard me say, if a Republican is illegally registered, They shouldn't be voting either.

26:23It should be the entire point of government to protect national security, our own security. So I'm gonna ask one more time as we sit here and think about this, whose side are we on?

26:36I 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 on to.

26:47If there is nothing to hide, If there is nothing to see there, there should be no problem. Just turn it over. Let the sun shine in. Let the light come. And let's find out.

27:00I 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 ranking member Ms. Crockett for an opening statement.

27:14Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to our witnesses for being here. Definitely thank you to our tireless elected official who decided to travel to D for this hearing 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 kinda somewhere swarming around in the theoretical world.

27:45In 49 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.

28:06They're offering y'all $5,000. Yes, $5,000 if you just 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.

28:24And 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 reelected, but that's a whole other issue.

28:35But let's talk about the conversation around $5,000 being offered by the 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.

28:55It 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.

29:15And 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.

29:32Y'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 wanna tell you about some of the problems they've caused, right?

29:42The fact that they actually are in control of every level 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 it relates to immigrant deaths.

29:58We could talk about the unconstitutional illegal war that's taking 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.

30:12We 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.

30:24We 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 going to 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 or we can talk about the tariffs because 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 $5,000 because you've been out of way more than $5,000 but nevertheless it's his fault and so he said y'all we're 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 $5,000 not to mention it is illegal so I think we should have a hearing Mr. Chairman about whether or not we are going to enforce the law on people that attempt to do vote buying but I will continue on gas is more than $4,000 nationally.

31:32Diesel 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.

31:50Republican-led states are removing hundreds of thousands of people from their voter rolls, including in a state like mine where in Texas, they put over a million people in suspense in Texas. Let me tell you what else they did in Texas, because this is what Republicans do when they have control.

32:07They 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 40 votes which means that they were now going to be knocked out of power They said let cut one third of the voting centers Let 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.

32:42The 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 44 years, only 100 of the more than 1 billion votes cast in presidential elections have been potential voter fraud.

33:03Let me repeat that. 100 of the more than 1 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 700 of the more than 140 million votes have been associated with non-citizens.

33:26Let me just say, Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files 38,000 times. That's more than 53 times the amount of alleged non-citizen votes in state elections and more than 300 times the amount of potential voter fraud in presidential elections.

33:44I'm just saying, if your name is mentioned 38 times, 38,000 times alongside sexual predators, you're probably guilty of something, but I digress. Trump always made more than 21, he's already made more than 21,000 stock trades in just one year in office.

34:04More than 30 times the amount of non-citizens in state elections and more than 200 times more than non-citizen votes in presidential elections over the past 44 years. Yet Republicans still haven't held a single hearing on that topic.

34:20Look, 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.

34:34He 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 the one that started this fight with the mid redistricting so that he could steal more power And he literally tried to steal the 2020 election Some people forgot because well he ain being prosecuted right now but that a very real thing He not just a threat to democracy.

35:07He's also the biggest threat to Americans' financial security. The only reason Americans would need the $5,000 bribe, because that's what it is, is because of his failed policies. The average American family is paying an additional $3,500 per year for basic necessities under Republicans.

35:24More than 4 million Americans have lost their SNAP benefits in just the first year of the big ugly bill. 8 million Americans lost their Affordable Care Act health care. Farmer bankruptcies are up almost 50 percent and nearly every Republican supported the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.

35:46So 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 49 days. Also don't fall for the lies and distractions.

36:01And the final thing that I want to do, and I'm going to enter this into the record as well, without objection of course, is I have this article. Listen, it's just facts. I have this article that It is from the Washington Post.

36:18And the article, the title of the article says, Trump, and this is on 9-11, Trump asked convention crowds 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.

36:40It 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.

36:54And Mr. Chairman, I'd be happy to have that hearing any day. I yield back.

36:59Are you into United States? What's the record? Yes.

37:01Without objection.

37:03Mr. Chairman. Yes, I recognize the gentleman from Missouri.

37:06I have a unanimous consent resolution motion. Without objection. First from Politico, July 21st, thousands of noncitizens registered to vote in New Jersey due to software error, Governor says. Next from the Department of Homeland Security on July 17th DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen sends letters to secretaries of state warning about non on voter rows And then from Politico and on July 28th, Mickey Sherrill refuses DOJ demand for data on New Jersey non-citizen voters citing privacy laws.

37:42Without objection. With that,

37:50I'm going to ask Mr. Jordan is coming back in a little while so we are going to to go right to the ranking member of the committee of the whole, Mr. Raskin, for his opening

37:59statement. Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to all of our witnesses. Today, I'm still waiting for my $5,000 doge check, Ms. Crockett, and the $2,000 tariff check. So, I'm not sure they're going to be able to- Respectfully, I'm having a little fun here.

38:15I think everybody got it except you. I don't know why that is, but I'm sorry. Go ahead.

38:21Look, the president 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.

38:38So they're trying mid-decade gerrymandering, extreme gerrymandering. Even that seems to be boomeranging against them in Texas, as a number of the districts that the president thought were going to be custom-made for him to take back Congress now are rejecting that ploy against democracy.

38:58Voter 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.

39:33There's 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 50 different monkey wrenches into the administration of elections the last eight weeks.

40:00So he could not even get it through what he thought was his safely stacked impact Supreme Court. So pro-Trump extreme that they dealt him for the first time in American history immunity for violent or for any felony crimes committed under the auspices of his office.

40:23So in some sense, 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 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.

40:50They want to convince us that our electoral system is riddled with fraud and we should turn it over to the 34-count convicted felon fraudster to run our elections instead. That's what's going to work.

41:07But it's not working. They have tried to compel dozens and dozens of states to turn over their state voter rolls. The states have rejected it. Both blue states and red states and purple states have rejected it.

41:24And the administration has been repudiated in two dozen different courts in this effort. All right. But here we are. What is our last subcommittee hearing in the infamously unproductive 119th Congress about today? It's about a clerical error by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, a clerical error that was caught not by the U.S.

41:40Post Office, not by President Trump and 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 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 $16 million insider no-bid contract to work on that.

42:52So it was not any of those prosecutors who determined that there was a problem in New Jersey. No, 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.

43:13Federalism 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 6600 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.

43:35These non citizens had not done anything wrong. The software erroneously placed them on the voter rolls. 400 of them or one in 17 actually voted. 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 2024.

43:56It's obviously unacceptable and egregious that even this small mistake occurred. It is federal law that U.S. citizens and only U.S. 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.

44:19But 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 We're a coercive effort to get the vice president of the United States to reject the Electoral College votes cast by millions of people in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states.

44:46It is not an act of attempted criminal fraud in the voting system like telling the Secretary of State of Georgia, just find me 11 votes That not an attempt to block voter fraud That 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 she is demanding precise answers about the whole snafu.

45:16After 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 rolls are accurate today and will be accurate in the future.

45:37The 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.

45:54If 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 2020, where he beat Donald Trump by more than seven million votes, 306 to 232 in the Electoral College and they continue to lie about that to this day.

46:26When the Iran war sent inflationary shockwaves through 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.

46:41It's only the power of Congress to declare war. So he got us into a stupid, self-defeating, counterproductive, costly inflationary war. Have they admitted it? No, they've denied it. They've claimed victory, I don't know, a dozen times.

46:56They'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 going to do a thorough, complete investigation and open up to the public?

47:09Not for one second. is DHS secretary Kristi Noem who spent hundreds of millions 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 the original act or for defaming the people they killed You get the point when over 100 of the January six writers pardoned all mass by Donald Trump went out and criminally re offended, including by sexually assaulting and exploiting 12 year old children, robbing houses with domestic invasions, strangling people, threatening to to kill FBI agents.

47:54Donald 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.

48:06She 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 mega doesn't want to use this 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.

48:47But the majority is determined to force through 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.

49:09This drive is not about ensuring the integrity of elections. If it were, Trump would not have gutted the cybersecurity infrastructure security agency, would not have disbanded the DOJ and FBI foreign influence threats task force.

49:23He would not have fired the head of the 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 our elections cannot be trusted.

49:39So 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 3rd. 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.

50:05And do not buy all of the last-minute propaganda and distortion and offensives against American political democracy. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

50:17Thank you. And without objection, all their opening statements will be included in the record. We're now going to 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.

50:33I'll start with Josh Findlay. If I mispronounce anybody's name, feel free to tell me, because I do that all the time. Mr. Findlay is a senior fellow for election integrity policy at the America First Policy Institute.

50:44He 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. Mr. Justin Reamer, correct?

51:04Okay. Mr. Reamer 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. Mr. Jason Senna.

51:18Mr. Senna is a partner at Archer and Griner, 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.

51:38Welcome. Mr. Stephen Richer, correct? Correct. Okay. Mr. Richer is a legal fellow with the Cato Institute. His work focuses on election administration, American democracy, executive orders, and American politics. We're going to begin. Welcome.

51:59Welcome. 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're 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 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 in its entirety.

52:35Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. Mr. Finlay, we're going to begin with you.

52:45Good afternoon, Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and members of the Subcommittee on oversight of the U.S. 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.

52:58That is voter suppression. The left has claimed for years that citizenship verification is unnecessary because non-citizens rarely appear on voter lists. They almost never vote. However, recently in New Jersey, almost 400 New Jersey citizens had their votes canceled out by a non-citizen, and that's what we know of.

53:18Even a small number of illegal votes matters. In 2025 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.

53:32In 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 state senators noted that people who identified themselves as non-citizens in the state's online driver voter registration system were being prompted to vote.

53:55The 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.

54:09A month later, the New Jersey Republican Party Election Integrity Task Force identified hundreds of non-citizens were registered to vote, with at least 30 documented cases of non-citizens illegally casting votes, in some cases across multiple elections and for many years.

54:19In 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.

54:35Even small numbers matter. They decide races and disenfranchise U.S. 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.

54:47In fact, they're common among states with less secure election laws In California the Secretary of State office admitted that it does not contain a voter status reason for registration cancellation due to non According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 24 states in the District of Columbia automatically register voters and add drivers to voters' lists.

55:10In 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 2023 legislation that gave driver's licenses to illegal aliens would enable those illegal aliens to vote.

55:32His silence was deafening. That should seem incredible, not commonplace. Automatic voter registration represents a risk to non-citizens as well. Section 237A6 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 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.

55:59People 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 ballot because they're on voter lists, aren't you endangering the very population that you allegedly support?

56:13Section 303 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.

56:28Policymakers should consider who wouldn't have a driver's license or social security number and ask why such a loophole exists. Fortunately, Section 303 also provides states with a solution. The state shall determine whether the information provided by an individual is sufficient to meet the requirements in accordance with the law.

56:48States 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.

56:59That's why Congress needs to pass the Save America Act to ensure that only 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 applicant reaches the voter registration form.

57:16When states issue driver's licenses to non-citizens and connect those systems to automatic voter registration they create a pipeline that places ineligible voters on voter lists Election integrity begins with secure voter registration and clean voter lists It requires maintaining accurate voter lists Thank you for allowing me to be here today, and I look forward to your questions.

57:44Thank you, Mr. Finley. Mr. Rehmer, you may begin.

57:47Thank you, Chairman, Ranking Member Crockett, and committee members. Integrity and Trust in Elections is an organization that investigates and litigates on election administration issues nationwide. Wright has focused on non-citizen registration issues since its founding, and I hope that experience is helpful as the committee examines this issue.

58:07New Jersey recently acknowledged that about 6,600 people were registered to vote even after they answered no on the citizenship question at the Motor Vehicle Commission. At least 340 then went on to vote. The state found the defect in June of 2024 and then left the registrations in place and said nothing publicly for two years.

58:27The 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 of the system relies solely on an attestation of citizenship without any further verification.

58:46The attestation was the only safeguard in New Jersey, and these applicants never even gave one. New Jersey caught this only by chance and only after a year. That represents there's no back-end safeguards that could have caught it any sooner.

59:02Officials 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.

59:22The irony is that DMV registration should be the most secure method we have. Those who obtain a Real ID license must provide proof of identity and legal presence in the U.S., and many of those documents would confirm an individual's citizenship before they are even offered registration.

59:41But New Jersey's process ignores those documents entirely. An applicant can hand an MVC worker a green card, a document that conclusively establishes their non-citizen and still be offered voter registration. Even worse, the person has to opt out of registering.

59:58Instead of fixing this, New Jersey 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.

60:18And it leaves the current vulnerability wide open for those obtaining standard, 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 Jersey is currently replicating.

60:38Their DMV staff misrecorded which documents applicants presented and nearly 2,000 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.

60:52New Jersey has shown that some states do not take 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.

61:11That 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, it would have kept them off the rolls.

61:33But even narrower reforms directed specifically at DMV registration would plug a huge hole, such as requiring state agencies like DMVs to 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.

61:54Congress 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.

62:06Congress 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.

62:23voters It could also clarify that the National Voter Registration Act pre blackout periods restricting certain list maintenance activities do not apply to removing non My written testimony also recommends reforms New Jersey could enact, and I hope officials there will take such suggestions seriously given these recent revelations.

62:47Thank you for inviting me to testify, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

62:50Thank you very much Mr. Reamer. Mr. Senna, you may begin.

62:59Thank 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.

63:11A way of background, I am a licensed attorney in New Jersey. I practice in the area of election law. I've been practicing for approximately 15 years and I'm a registered voter in my state.

63:20I followed 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

63:34follow-up questions that the committee may have. As the committee is aware, in

63:38July 2026 the state of New Jersey publicly admitted that roughly 6,600 people who indicated they were not U.S. citizens between June 2023 and June 2024 were registered to vote pursuant to what was described as a, quote, serious software error in New Jersey's motor vehicle system.

63:57The 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 requests which revealed the presence as a matter of fact of non-citizens on our voter rolls.

64:22Despite 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.

64:44The 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 causing the alleged software error resulting in registration of non This attempt to blame the vendor for unlawfully registering non-citizens is based on a false premise that the MVC itself performs the registration.

65:18It does not. It transmits voter information that it collects to election officials who then perform the ministerial, non-discretionary 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.

65:44This unfortunate situation vindicates the concerns raised by opponents of the legislation that led to automatic voter registration at the MVC. In 2019, the New Jersey legislature held committee hearings on the bill that was before them at that time.

66:02During 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.

66:21And 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.

66:40Clearly, 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.

66:57For 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 timeframe that we're discussing here and through means other than the MVC.

67:16This 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 list maintenance practices here are questionable What we know already confirms that that the case It's clear that non-citizens have been registered to vote in New Jersey in violation of law.

67:44The 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.

67:54Thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions

68:01that the committee may have. Thank you Mr. Senna. Mr. Richard you may begin. Thank

68:07you. Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I serve as the elected Republican Maricopa County recorder from January 2021 until January 2025 where I was responsible for voter registration and early voting for the 4.6 million people in that county.

68:23I 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.

68:41Arizona, my home state has had a documented proof of citizenship requirement for over 20 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.

69:03And to date, all evidence suggests that non-citizen voting in American elections is a minute phenomenon. I am aware of at least 29 non-citizen voter audits performed by states and counties since the beginning of 2021.

69:20In May of this year, Utah published its findings from a year-long audit of the state's 2.1 million registered voters. The state found 27 confirmed non-citizens on the voter rolls. 27. That's .001 percent. And in Michigan, the Secretary of State recently audited the approximately 725,000 registered voters in Macomb County.

69:50That 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.

70:06Recent 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.

70:29The results have been entirely consistent with the audits I just mentioned. According to reporting from ProPublica, between January 2025 and May 2026, the federal government charged 41 non-citizens with voting illegally or other election-related crimes.

70:49Those 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.

71:05Or they point to indiscriminate analyses that use commercial data without personal identifying information, such as Social Security numbers or a 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.

71:23Turning 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.

71:396,600 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.

71:59But 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.

72:11I know this because in Arizona, we have a documented proof of citizenship requirement, and yet we had a very similar 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 voting But again this was a coding mistake 6,600 people got improperly registered.

72:41340 of those voted in at least one election. But for context, there are 6.68 million registered voters in New Jersey, and 4.3 million of them voted in November 2024. Even in this scenario, this worst case scenario, non-citizens made up a fraction of a percent of voters.

73:02American 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.

73:20Thank you, Mr. Richard. One thing I'm going to disagree with you on 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.

73:32You can check into that. Okay, thank you. With that, I am going to ask, I'm going to recognize the gentleman from Missouri.

73:44Thank you, Mr. 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 wants to maintain free, fair and secure elections.

74:02What happened in Missouri is not an isolated failure. Roughly 6,600 people, that's not an isolated failure, who said they were not citizens were placed on the voter rolls and 400 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.

74:25New York shows us this the problem is not only administrative, the New York City Council passed a law to let non-citizens vote in municipal elections and defended it all the way to to the state's highest court.

74:42Verifying 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 Adrienne Adams co and voted for that law when she was a member of the New York City Council And as Speaker, she took the Council's case all the way to the Court of Appeals.

75:12This February, Governor Hochul 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, this issue of election integrity is something that in the Missouri legislature we discussed for many years.

75:32Twice 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 2022. The arguments from my Democrat colleagues are always, it never happens.

75:47There is no voter fraud. It never happens. There is no illegal, no alien has ever been registered to vote. No alien has ever voted. New Jersey tells us otherwise. Mr. Senna, can you tell us a little more about the case in New Jersey?

76:05How do we distinguish between unintentional software or administrative glitches and intentional efforts to improperly register aliens or cast votes?

76:18Mr. Honor, I think you'd have to look to the point of registration. It's hard to say, as I sit here today, how to know what somebody's intentions were when they go at the point of registration.

76:36But I think we know here that the problem is broader in scope than the state government has come forward and publicly said. There are, and this is all through matters of public record that were obtained from county election offices, indicate that people intentionally or unintentionally registered to vote through the MVC or otherwise before this time window that was set up and after.

77:09And it was a matter of fact they registered. Whether they meant to do it or not. I should say that the records that I've seen are the folks that were improperly registered all self-removed from the rolls.

77:24Okay Ostensibly because they wanted to become citizens and couldn do so if they were improperly registered registered So I think it important for this committee to know those records pertain to people who did the right thing.

77:35Yeah. And that might be a subset. Yeah. It sure could because 75,000 people in New Jersey every year are excused from jury duty for not being citizens. So I don't, that's an answer that I don't know.

77:49I don't know what that number is. It could be zero, but it may not be, and it's something that needs to be reviewed.

77:57Mr. Reamer, what obligations do states have under the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act to maintain accurate roles, and which of those obligations would have caught this?

78:10Thank you, Congressman. Well, as it relates to noncitizens, there's really nothing. There's an attestation of citizenship that's required on any federal form for people that they used to register. The National Voter Registration Act has a provision that requires states to maintain voter rolls.

78:27It does not address non-citizen removal, although courts have interpreted it to remove non-citizens, but it is forced them to do it, but it restricts them from removing them simultaneously. So it does no good, it only does bad.

78:41So we need to address

78:46non-citizen removal here in this body? I think right now federal law

78:51essentially relies on an honor system that the person is going to attest to being a citizen and there's really nothing else in place that stops it from

78:59happening. Thank you I yield back. Thank the gentleman I recognize the ranking

79:05member. Thank you so much I just want to highlight something because I want to make sure everyone heard this correct. Mr. Richard you said you were the

79:16Republican, like Maricopa County.

79:20I just want to, the emphasis on Republican. I just want to make sure I was clear about that and make sure everybody heard it.

79:25Yeah, I got the emphasis, yes, correct.

79:27Oh, okay, okay, cool. Just want to make sure you heard that. Because I agree, the things like voter fraud should not be a matter of partisanship. This should be black and white, this should be right versus wrong.

79:38And that is why I would love it if the chairman would go on record and tell me whether or not you will agree to have a hearing on whether or not it is okay to offer people $5,000 in exchange for their votes.

79:52I will certainly consider that, but I don't think that, since you asked me a question, I'm gonna use a few seconds of your time. We talked about everything else today other than the fact that people who were not legal citizens in the state of New Jersey and the United States of America voted.

80:09That's a far cry from somebody saying that they want to return some of the people's taxpayer dollars to the taxpayer.

80:16Oh, okay. Okay. Well, listen. I mean, you can do that right now. Y'all are in control. So, y'all still got a little bit of time. So, if y'all want to put something on the floor, go right ahead, because y'all are in charge.

80:26some of the promises that were made before, maybe as it relates to the tariff refunds, because it seemed like the big boys got their money, but the little guy is still struggling. But I digress.

80:37You know, and it's interesting what the chairman just said, because when we talk about fraud, notice that a lot of the other witnesses specifically talked about registration. They didn't necessarily talk about the actual act of voting.

80:53They talked about voter registration. And one of the distinctions that I think you were trying to bring out, and I think the chairman may ask you about in your testimony, is when we talk about criminality, it always has to do with what we call a mens rea, the mentality, right?

81:08And so if there was an error or a glitch because of a system, then why is it that we're having a hearing about the people that somehow were involved in the glitch? If there's a problem, I want us to fix the problems, let me be clear, because I think that that's what we're supposed to do.

81:24But it seems like we should have a hearing on whoever it is that did the software and figure out what went wrong. Because when we talk about criminality, it should be about the intent.

81:34Kind of like when the president intentionally told people, just do this for me and I'll give you some money. Sounds like a bribe. Or when he intentionally told people, if that don't work, then cheat like hell.

81:47I just want to be clear that intent is what we look at when we look at criminality. We don't look at mistakes. and the fact that someone was added to the rolls, mistakenly, doesn't necessarily make them a criminal.

82:00But I know people are gonna talk about the fact they ain't citizens and so they demons anyway, so you know, whatever, that's what they put out there. But the irony of holding a hearing on election integrity chaired by a member who voted against certifying the 2020 election and signed an amicus brief to overturn the election and then inviting one of the principal architects of the fake elector scam where people were actually convicted in their individual states for the fake elector scam to serve as a witness is an interesting strategy but I won judge it It kind of like having the people who are in the Epstein files being in charge of releasing the Epstein files, you know?

82:40But again, I digress. Here's what I can guarantee. The main issue on the mind of people in New Jersey, and I've been there, so, you know, I've talked to some of your peoples, is the cost of living crisis caused by Republican policies.

82:53The average price of gas in New Jersey is up 41.2% since Trump took office. Energy costs, groceries, rents, and diesel are all up across the state of New Jersey because of Trump's illegal war and tariffs.

83:05The average cost of childcare for two children in New Jersey is almost $40,000. More than 13,000 people in New Jersey filed bankruptcy between April 2025 and March of 2026, and 44,000 families are losing food assistance.

83:19Yet Republicans are focused on pleasing the president instead of offering help to hardworking families in New Jersey. Mr. Richer, you've described this as MAGA exhibitionism. And I agree. They've made claims that are blatantly untrue and supported the president's actions, which many courts have said were unlawful.

83:39So I want to play a game of rhetoric or reality. Mail-in vote leading leads to more voter fraud, rhetoric or reality. Rhetoric. If Congress passed the SAVE Act, the mishap in New Jersey would have never happened.

83:54Rhetoric. The 2020 election was rigged. False. You're like, I ain't even saying that's rhetoric. That's just a lie. Got it. More than 200,000 non-citizens illegally registered to vote. I'm not aware of any such statistic.

84:09Now, in his written testimony, Mr. Finley argues that if Congress passed the SAVE Act, it would have prevented the voter roll mishap in New Jersey. You argue that that perspective is incorrect. Why? Again, we have documented proof of citizenship

84:26in Arizona, yet we had a similar issue because there was, again, a software glitch between the state motor vehicle division and the voter registration system. In New Jersey, these people, we knew that they were not citizens.

84:40By providing documented proof of citizenship at the point of registration, they still would have been marked as not citizens. But then that box turned into that they were citizens That the problem That what New Jersey needs to fix And that what I assume they investigating Thank you so much I yield Thank you So I going to yield five minutes to myself and I going to try to bring this conversation

85:06back home. My good friends on the other side have talked about a lot today, very little of it to do with the real problem at hand, that illegal people were voting in New Jersey elections and not just one or two of them.

85:21They've talked about the tariffs. They've talked about refunds. They've talked about Iran. They've talked about the 2020 election. They've talked about January 6th. They've talked about Doge. They've talked about algae. They've talked about Epstein.

85:34They've talked about a whole gamut of stuff, because nobody wants to talk about this, but I do. We want to talk about this. Here's the real nub of this issue. New Jersey knew in 2024 that something was wrong and illegals were registered and were voting, didn't do anything about it.

85:58They knew in 2025 and in 2026 they knew and then did finally reveal it because the Department of Homeland Security put a lot of pressure on them to get these records and to know what exactly happened.

86:14That's the real issue. You know, I remember, I've talked about this before, and quite frankly, my friends on the other side said to me, there's nothing to see there. There's not any illegal people voting anywhere.

86:26There's no illegal people being registered to vote. Almost 7,000 that we know, and there really could be a lot more. And I'm going to ask some questions that will lead to that. I was told I was a conspiracy theorist.

86:37So were many of us who had these thoughts. I know there's a lot of crazy statistics out there, but let's really get down to a couple really important points. I always like to get down to the basics, what really matters here.

86:51And Mr. Finley, I'm gonna start with you. I'm gonna try to give everybody a chance. Can one vote make a difference? And if you don't know the answer, tell me, were there elections in New Jersey in either 2024, 2025, or 2026 so far, where a few votes made a difference, where somebody won or lost by a few votes?

87:13Yes, one vote can make a difference. And in 2025, there were at least three races

87:21where one where they were divided decided by one vote or less And do we know of the hundreds of voted illegally where they voted In what municipalities in what towns in what districts Do we have an information I asked for it, I didn't receive it.

87:37Maybe one of you have that info, do you? No, nobody has it. We don't know. So the reality is in a state which has a lot of little towns where there are close elections that it is very possible that, whether Whether it's a school board election, a fire district election, whether it's a general election, whether it's a primary election, we could have in New Jersey a situation where somebody's right to elected office was taken away because somebody voted illegally.

88:09That's a reality. Now, we'd like to see the numbers and know if it's true, but that is the reality. All the other crap doesn't matter. This matters. Mr. Reamer and Mr. Sena. Sena, I'm going to pronounce your name.

88:23Senna, you had it right. Senna, I'm sorry, Senna. When they fill that out, when they fill out in the way that it was with the motor voter, and they ask, are you legal, or are you a legal citizen of the United States?

88:37The people, the good people that filled out and told the truth did what they did, and by the way, it wasn't that they were changed to being legal, they just went on and registered them anyhow, but they did what they did.

88:49Is it possible that some lied and said that they were legal, but they were not? Mr. Senna?

88:59It's certainly possible. And I think that that's a knowable fact, because every person on the voter rolls, their eligibility can be determined today with the appropriate information.

89:10It can, but the bottom line is when they just fill out, a lot of people don't know that, they could have absolutely lied. We only know the people who are honest enough to say that they were illegal.

89:20We don't know other people that may have been illegal and said they were legal. So the chances are, Mr. Reamer, what do you think? The number could be a lot higher or could be higher.

89:29Absolutely.

89:30This is the stuff we want to get to. This is what we asked the governor for.

89:34Absolutely, Chairman. And that's the underlying problem with having an honor system for registering voters, including in a place where just a few minutes before they're asked to register to vote, they had to provide some type of documentation.

89:47Which they should, yeah. This is the reality. This is what this hearing is about. We're all over the politics and everything. No, we want to make sure only legal people are voting. Mr. Senna, last question, are you aware of any public records received about this case of non-citizens registering to vote in New Jersey?

90:00I know that you

90:05are. Yes, I am. Yeah. And what do these records show? There are records, as I think I mentioned, from Hudson County and Bergen County, two of the most populated counties in the state, which show that people registered before the time period and after the time period that was mentioned by the

90:23state government. What you're telling me is the problem could be a whole lot bigger than we really know because they don't want to turn over the official documents. It absolutely could, and I

90:31think these records which anybody can review under our open public records law demonstrate that.

90:38Thank you. I yield back. I recognize the gentleman from the great state of Kansas.

90:46Thank you Mr. Chairman and appreciate your calling this hearing today. Appreciate our witnesses all being here. I was listening carefully before I got in the room watching the hearing while I was I was working on another matter and then been listening carefully since I've been in here and appreciate the focus on the topic of the hearing, which is the conduct or reported conduct in New Jersey.

91:05I want to ask questions that relate to the policy issues presented here, but they arise in the context of my home state in Kansas. We've had somewhat different experience, but the same types of dynamics in play, both in our public discourse and in our election integrity enforcement provisions.

91:26We've had a handful of, I'll characterize them as voter fraud prosecutions, persons voting without being eligible, that have resulted in conviction. It's been a relatively small number, but there have been cases. There was a case that received quite a bit of attention within the past couple of years from the rural part of southeast Kansas.

91:45An individual ultimately pled guilty. He was known in the community. He was liked in the community. He was a green card holder. He was not a citizen of the United States. He had nonetheless registered and he had voted repeatedly and ultimately admitted to that conduct.

91:58And last I checked was in removal proceedings. I don't know if that's still the case. I haven't checked. And I would ask Mr. Chairman if I could insert in the record a report on that case from the Department of Homeland Security.

92:07Without objection.

92:09We had a case just this week just to illustrate sort of the ongoing nature. The headline from the USCIS announcement was Peruvian alien indicted for illegally voting. That's a Wichita case. I believe it's the case.

92:21that's another green card holder but I could be mistaken on that fact but in any event enforcement matters are ongoing Mr Chairman I ask to insert that in the record as well And I sure it will be inserted without objection Without objection Thank you Mr Chairman So I guess I'd just ask, maybe kind of backing up to the biggest principles here, I'm going to ask each of you, would you agree or disagree with the principle that only citizens of the United States should be allowed to vote in our federal elections?

92:49Mr. Finley?

92:53I agree 100 percent.

92:55Mr. Reimer?

92:56Yes, Congressman.

92:57Mr. Senna?

92:58Agree. Senna?

93:00Senna, you have it right. Senna, thank you very much. Mr. Richard? Agree. Very good. Would you agree or disagree with the principle that only citizens of the United States should be allowed to vote in our state elections?

93:09Mr. Finley?

93:10I would agree.

93:11Mr. Reimer?

93:12I would agree.

93:13Mr. Senna? Agree. Mr. Richard? Agree. And lastly, perhaps not surprisingly, would you agree or disagree with the principle that only citizens of the United States ought to be allowed to vote in our local government elections.

93:23Mr. Finley? I agree.

93:25Mr. Reimer?

93:26I agree. Mr. Senna? Agree. Mr. Richard? Agree. Very good. There are obviously, as I understand from news reports, some local jurisdictions that have made the policy choice to allow persons who are not citizens of the country to vote in their elections.

93:38I presume from your answers, and speak up if I'm drawing too much, that all four of you would be in disagreement with those policy choices by those local units in various states. Is that correct?

93:50Yes.

93:52Very good. Then let me ask you this. With respect to all those three levels of government and that principle that only citizens of the United States ought to be voting in any of our elections, would you agree or disagree with the idea that there ought to be enforceable mechanisms to determine whether an individual is in fact a citizen when they're voting?

94:05Mr. Finley. I agree there should be. Mr. Reimer?

94:11Absolutely.

94:12Mr. Senna?

94:13Yes.

94:14Mr. Richer? I think it can work. And I think there's wide agreement on all those topics. It seems to me Republicans and Democrats, at least in my state, agree on those principles. In fact, our state was one of the first to adopt both photo identification, not the first, but one of the early adopters, and documentary proof of citizenship upon registration.

94:32We adopted the latter, at least. Maybe the former. I can't remember the timeline on the former. But we adopted the latter in 2011. Our legislature did. It was non-controversial. Republicans and Democrats voted for it.

94:42Our current Democrat governor was a member of the state Senate. She voted for it. the Democrat minority leader voted for it in both the House and in the Senate. It later became controversial after it was adopted and after it became a political debate as opposed to a debate about how we ought to structure a program that confirms citizenship to enforce the principles that each of you has agreed to And I guess I just I would ask I would ask all of you bottom line as succinctly as you can what should we do?

95:14I mean, if our friends on the other side don't want us to ask for documentation of either citizenship or of, what should we do? Mr. Richer, I'll start with you. Since you said this can be done, what should we do if we're not going to do this?

95:26Reform, I think, one, we need to be honest about the facts on the ground, and that was the object of my testimony. But then I think we should reform, consider reforming the MVRA to allow states to have more discretion, to allow them to be the laboratories of democracy.

95:40And some states have already done this, like my home state of Arizona, like Georgia and others.

95:44But don't let them have non-citizens voting in local elections or other elections.

95:48Correct. Arizona has a documented proof of citizenship requirement and does not allow non-citizens to participate in local elections. Time's nearly out. Anybody else, Mr. Senna? What should we do?

95:58Amend the National Voter Registration Act to establish a clear standard for a list of maintenance practices.

96:05I agree. I would narrow in on the DMV processes, because we're a majority of Americans registers through the DMV, and as we've explained, it's the place where you should be able to verify the eligibility of these people most easily, but we don't do it and it should be an easy thing to do and I would hope would

96:24get bipartisan support. Agreed. There needs to be a baseline for states. If they're not going to implement their own baseline then the federal government needs to through the mechanisms that they've described. Thank you all Mr.

96:36Chairman. Thank you and thank you for your indulgence. Thank you and that was a

96:41good line of questioning and I appreciate it. See I mean we all think there's certain things that should be done and need to be done. With that I I will recognize the ranking member of the Committee of the Whole.

96:52Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Richard, you're a Republican, is that right? Yes. And you were the senior elected official overseeing elections in Maricopa County, where more than two million people live. Is that right?

97:07That's right. 4.6 million, 2.5 registered voters.

97:102.5 million registered voters. OK. In the 2020 election, when we get always the hysteria and hullabaloo around this. Donald Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, made the wild claim that 250,000 illegal aliens voted in Arizona Was that true Was there any evidence to support that There was no evidence to support that So what was it based on when he said that

97:35I don't know. Again, Arizona has. It is one of the states that has documented proof of citizenship requirement, and I have never seen anything to support those numbers.

97:46all right why you have participated the Cato Institute in systematic academic research documenting that this is a trivial problem at best across the country why do we always hear claims about it at election time I think because

98:07it's politically expedient because it stokes fears and it grabs attention but I think we need to be we can have public policy conversations about the topic but we need to be honest about the facts on the ground.

98:19And the facts are the ground that every time a state or local government audits their voter rolls for non-citizens, yes, they find a handful, but it's a fraction of a fraction of a percent.

98:31And I therefore think it's a straw man and a bit out bad faith to say that people are saying no non-citizens are ever registering or are voting. But what we're saying is that every single investigation, including by this federal government, it's a fraction of a fraction of a percent.

98:47Okay. Our colleague, the former attorney general, asked a series of questions about non-citizen voting. I just want to pursue that line of questioning for a second. Do you believe that non-citizen corporate shareholders should be able to vote as shareholders in shareholder corporate elections for American corporations?

99:11Mr. Finley.

99:14I don't have an opinion this time on corporate voting practices.

99:19Well, I'm talking about foreigners voting in shareholder corporate elections.

99:23Correct. It's governed by a different area of law. Okay. Mr. Reamer? Congressman, I've literally never thought about that in my life. I couldn't. It's off the cuff.

99:31Well, you know that there are billions of dollars of private corporate stock in American corporations owned by foreign governments, foreign businesses, foreign nationals. do you think they should be able to participate in American corporate shareholder elections?

99:47I think it's a very different thing than deciding who our leaders are, what our policies are, what our tax policies are, and all of that. So I suppose if I'm put on the spot, I would say yes.

99:58Yes, it's okay with you.

100:00should be able to vote.

100:01Okay, Mr. Senna.

100:02And corporate.

100:03Mr. Senna.

100:05That's a question I didn't think I was gonna be asked today. I'm not a corporate lawyer. I really don't know what goes on in corporate governance, but I think that the people who are the ones that are paying the bills should be the ones that have a say in what goes on and how the money is.

100:22Yeah, you know that that was the basis for why the Republican Party, for example, was a big champion of non-citizen voting in municipal elections, in local elections in America. And it was a common practice when we had a property requirement for voting as a suffrage requirement.

100:40But Mr. Richer, how about you? Do you think that foreigners who own American corporate stock should be able to participate in shareholder derivative corporate elections?

100:50Yes. To do otherwise would be to upend the American economy.

100:53OK. So now let me just go back one more time, and maybe I'll start with you, Mr. Richer. If a corporation's gonna use its citizens' united rights to spend millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in elections, should the corporation or the CEO who controls the corporation at that point have such a right if it also has money coming in from foreign sources like governments, corporations, and foreign nationals?

101:22I think that, I believe that money is speech

101:25and that right shouldn be infringed Well but you know that foreigners don have a right to vote in American elections That what this hearing is all about right And so you saying that those foreigners should have a right in some cases to have much more influence over the political process by putting money into a corporation that then converts that into campaign cash.

101:46I'm getting a little out of my depth here, but yeah, that's the general principle.

101:50Mr. Senna, what do you think? Should a corporation be able to spend money in our politics if, say, even a majority or all of its money is coming from foreign sources in terms of foreign corporate ownership, because there's nothing that stops an American registered corporation from having 100 percent of

102:06its shares owned by foreigners. I think that there's probably a legal way to skin that cat and have appropriate restrictions on the injection of foreign money into corporations and speech, similar along the lines of other federal laws.

102:20So you're saying you do think it would be a problem

102:26to have foreign money involved in political campaigns through corporate spending?

102:30No, not necessarily, but I think that I'm a little bit out of my depth on that topic. Yeah. But I think that there's probably a legal way to address those issues that is not something I'm prepared to discuss.

102:45Yeah.

102:47I think the biggest foreign money problem that we have right now in our politics is through people like Hans Bjorkspies and George Soros and those types of folks. And states have actually successfully prevented

102:59foreign influences from being able to How did you feel about Mr Kremlin paying for the wedding festivities of the son of the president of the United States Hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars Did you have a problem with that?

103:12I'm not sure what you're even talking about.

103:14Did you read the newspaper today? I was preparing for my testimony. All right. I'll send it to you. You might hear some conversation out on the campaign trail. And Mr. Finley, what about you?

103:23Gentlemen, I will recognize the gentleman, Mr. Finley, and then the time has expired.

103:29I think we need to be concerned about foreign funding of elections. I think we need to look into what is happening with corporations. But as my colleague, Mr. Reimer said, there's a lot happening with nonprofit organizations that is happening across the country.

103:43States are successfully banning, and that's what we need to keep an eye on for right now.

103:46Thank you, Mr. Finley. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that George Soros is a US citizen, and perhaps we could apologize to him for describing him as a foreigner. I didn't know if Mr. Reamer was aware of that.

104:00There is a lot of foreign money coming in to fund progressive causes like ballot initiatives and other policy making at the state level.

104:08How do you feel about $400 million jets coming in from Qatar to the president of the United States? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, member. I've given you a lot of leeway.

104:16I mean, I've got to be one of the nicest chairmen, right?

104:21You are the sweetest.

104:22New Jersey's finest. Okay. All right. So I think Mr. Jordan was going to try to make it. I think he got held up So this is going to conclude today hearing We thank our witnesses We do thank you I know your time is Oh yes I sorry I recognize the gentleman from Kansas Thank you Mr Chairman Just before you close the hearing down if I could ask unanimous

104:44consent to include several documents in the record. One titled 75,000 noncitizens called for jury duty in New Jersey each year. One titled Aliens charged with illegally voting in a federal election and making false statements while applying for U.S. citizenship.

104:55One titled it's the honor system. New Jersey's non-citizen voter registration brings private worries into the open and one titled New Jersey accidentally registers 6,600 non-citizens to vote years ago, Governor says. Without objection.

105:11Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I go back. And that concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for appearing before the subcommittee on oversight. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record.

105:25Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.