Bucco, Corrado propose voter ID, end to automatic MVC voter registration in New Jersey
NEW JERSEY — New Jersey Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco and Sen. Kristin Corrado have introduced legislation that would end automatic voter registration at the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, establish voter identification requirements and require regular audits of the state’s voter rolls.
Bucco, R-Morris and Passaic, and Corrado, R-Bergen, Essex and Passaic, introduced S-4616 following the revelation that at least 6,600 noncitizens were registered to vote and hundreds voted illegally.
The legislation would eliminate automatic voter registration at the MVC, implement voter identification requirements in all future elections and require biannual, independent and transparent audits of voter rolls.
“New Jerseyans need more than just excuses and finger pointing, they deserve action, and there are commonsense steps we can take right now,” said Bucco. “Get the Motor Vehicle Commission out of the voter registration business, implement voter identification requirements, and establish regular audits to clean up our voter rolls. These are straightforward safeguards that can be put in place immediately while we continue to uncover how this disaster happened. We can take action today to correct the obvious problems, but the Legislature has a responsibility to investigate how we got here and make sure this never happens again.”
Corrado also called for additional scrutiny of what led to the voter registration problems.
“Removing the MVC from the voter registration process, requiring voter ID, and conducting regular audits of our voter rolls are the obvious safeguards we should be implementing right now,” said Corrado. “But New Jersey cannot simply fix the symptoms and move on. We need a complete accounting of what happened, who knew about it, when they knew, why warnings were ignored, and what additional reforms are necessary to ensure a breach of public trust of this magnitude never happens again.”
