NH GOP: New Jersey Noncitizen-Voting Fiasco Vindicates Citizenship Law

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

When then-Gov. Chris Sununu signed a GOP-backed law mandating proof of citizenship for voter registration, Granite State Democrats were united in their opposition.

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen called it “anti-American.

“Republicans can’t win without cheating,” added New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley.

And the top Democrat on the House Election Law Committee, state Rep. Connie Lane (D-Concord), filed legislation to overturn the registration ID mandate.

In June, a Biden-appointee judge blocked the proof-of-citizenship mandate, and now New Hampshire Republicans are pointing to New Jersey to show what the consequences could be.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) admitted Tuesday that around 400 noncitizens cast voted in Garden State elections since June 2023, and approximately 6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote. The registrations were the result of a “serious software error” in the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission system, Sherrill said.

But the ability of noncitizens to cast ballots is a result of the state’s decision not to require proof of citizenship at any point in the process, the same system New Hampshire Democrats support.

“We are constantly told that noncitizens are not voting in our elections,” said state Rep. Ross Berry (R-Weare), chair of the House Election Law Committee. “Yet time and again, we see cases where government ‘systems’ fail and people who should never have been registered end up on the voter rolls anyway, including here in New Hampshire.”

Last year, Naseef Bryan, a Jamaican citizen living in Manchester, was charged with three counts of wrongful voting by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

New Jersey does not require documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers, when someone registers to vote. Its voter-registration form simply asks applicants whether they are citizens and requires them to sign an affirmation under penalty of law.

That was the system enacted by New Hampshire and blocked by a federal judge. (The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office is appealing that decision, but the ruling currently remains in effect.)

Berry said New Hampshire’s registration system avoids some of the risks created by automatic registration programs.

“New Hampshire has wisely rejected automatic voter registration,” Berry said. “If you want to register here, you do it intentionally through your local town clerk or at your polling place on Election Day, not by sweeping thousands of people onto the voter rolls who never asked to be there in the first place.”

Opposition to ballot security measures like voter ID and proof of citizenship is politically risky for Democrats. A 2024 UNH Survey Center poll found 58 percent of Granite Staters support requiring people to provide physical evidence of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. Nationally, Gallup found 83 percent of Americans support requiring first-time voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering.

In July 2026, the Department of Homeland Security said preliminary review of voter rolls found approximately 256,000 noncitizens registered to vote in just four states: California, Jew Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.

Democrats say those numbers are inflated, and they point to New Jersey. While the DHS claimed more than 35,000, the state’s audit found 6,600.

Republicans say the episode disproves claims that existing systems invariably prevent ineligible residents from reaching the voter rolls, or from casting ballots once they are registered.

“Unfortunately, a left-wing activist federal judge blocked New Hampshire’s proof-of-citizenship requirement while the case is on appeal,” Berry said. “We had a commonsense system to verify citizenship before someone was added to the voter rolls, and now that safeguard has been put on hold.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.