As if long wait times, Byzantine paperwork requirements, and unwelcome taxes and fees weren’t enough, we can add one more offense to state vehicle license bureaus’ tabs: Erroneous voter registration.

According to New Jersey governor Mike Sherill, his state’s Motor Vehicle Commission improperly registered about 6,600 noncitizens to vote due to a “software error” in 2023 and 2024, leading to about 400 illegal ballots being cast in the state.

Some downplay factors:

First, those 400 votes, if all cast in one election (the 2024 general election) came to about 1/10th of 1% of votes cast, while the narrowest statewide margin of victory was the 5.9% by which Democrat Kamala Harris bested Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race.  Even at the congressional level, the closest race was decided by more than 1% … and Republican Tom Kean Jr., won that race. QED, if the “software error” was actually a nefarious Democrat plot to screw the GOP, it failed miserably.

Second, elections are hardly “representative” of the populations subjected to rule by the winners. In New Jersey’s 2024 election, only 46% of that population voted. The other 54% either weren’t allowed to vote or chose not to. Some “representative democracy,” huh?

Third, New Jersey’s elections are already thoroughly rigged by both “major parties” — the state’s election laws are even worse that those in most other states when it comes to ensuring that only Democrats and Republicans even appear on the ballot.

The “software error” seems, consequentially, like a tempest in a teapot.

But, if we’re going to have elections, we should have honest elections so at least everyone can know where they stand.

State “motor voter” laws — especially those which, like New Jersey’s, automatically register people who interact with the license bureau to vote, only later allowing them to opt out — don’t just risk inaccuracies like those produced by this episode, they abandon a key element in any supposed democracy: Consent.

When you beg the state of New Jersey for a driver’s license, government ID card, etc., the bureaucrat behind the counter doesn’t request your permission to add your name to yet another database and co-opt you as a “member of the electorate.” It just happens without so much as a “by your leave.”

Some countries go even further, requiring their regimes’ subjects to vote and fining, withholding various government permissions from, or even jailing, those who don’t cast ballots.

I personally know people who choose not to vote, or to be registered to vote.

Some just don’t care about politics.

Others actively oppose lending their names and reputations to a system they oppose.

They do not consent to that system and don’t consider it “representative” of their rights, interests, or desires.

If someone signed your name on a legal contract you didn’t agree to or a petition you didn’t agree with, you’d be angry — and you’d be right. Both of those things are reasonable descriptions of voting and politics anyway — the “social contract” claim for political government is nonsense — but automatic voter registration and (elsewhere) mandatory voting are the height of “Temu representative democracy.”

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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