Former NJ mayor urges DOJ election monitors after illegal foreign voter registrations 

Former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac asked U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche to increase federal scrutiny of New Jersey’s elections, according to a letter obtained by Heartlander News.

The request comes after Gov. Mikie Sherrill disclosed a Motor Vehicle Commission software error resulted in roughly 6,600 people who identified themselves as noncitizens being registered to vote, as previously reported by Heartlander News.

But the contractor the state tried to blame for the registration error said the state was at fault for the illegal foreign registrations.

“Our preliminary analysis shows fewer than 400 individuals who were newly registered for the first time because of the error voted,” claimed Sherrill, a Democrat.

But Kranjac isn’t mollified by anyone’s explanation, noting that a combination of circumstances – including a lack of transparency by the state about the error, the abrupt departure of leadership in the state’s election operation and the registration problems – should raise concerns.

“With the departure of the state’s top election official just weeks before the election, it is imperative that the Trump administration and the federal government monitor New Jersey elections” to ensure the results are fair and accurate, Kranjac told Heartlander News.

Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell, a Democrat who also served as the state’s top election official, resigned in late September over allegations of sexual harassment and ethics concerns.

Federal scrutiny

The former Englewood Cliffs mayor also asked the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to deploy federal election monitors ahead of November’s midterms.

Kranjac, 60, was the first Republican in 40 years to serve as mayor of the town described as a “blue-leaning borough” in northern New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

In his letter to the DOJ, Kranjac cited “secrecy” by state officials that “represents a unique threat to election security in a state that, according to Census estimates, ranks in the top one or two among states in foreign-born population not eligible to vote in federal elections, at 11%.”

In addition to the registration errors, Kranjac also noted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raised concerns with the state that as many as 35,152 noncitizens may be registered to vote in the Garden State.

DHS said it came up with the estimate by matching names, dates of birth, addresses and Social Security numbers with information contained in immigration records about noncitizens, according to Fox News.

“Yet state officials continue to resist efforts to obtain voter-registration records necessary to independently examine the voter rolls,” reads Kranjac’s letter to the Attorney General.

In a rolling set of announcements in 2026, the DOJ charged 10 noncitizens in New Jersey who allegedly voted in a federal election, including: David Neewilly, 73; Jacenth Beadle Exum, 70; Idan Choresh, 43; Abhinandan Vig, 33; Eliezer Kadoch, 39; Marian Charitun, 62; Mercedes Alexandra Cardoso, 41; Sanata Coulibaly, 64; Patrick Terrance Reid, 61; and Danubis Bernat, 49.

Kranjac noted that, in the case of Coulibaly, she voted in federal elections in 2018 and 2020 and submitted a provisional ballot in 2024.

The DOJ charging documents claim she first registered to vote in 2016 and made false statements on her immigration and naturalization paperwork.

Trump admin stepping up enforcement

In September, Blanche said the Trump administration has prosecuted four times as many noncitizen voters in two years as the Biden administration prosecuted in four years, noted Heartlander News.

“[F]rom my personal experience with elections in New Jersey,” the former mayor added in his letter to Blanche, “our voter rolls also include unlawful registrations of citizens who have moved but remain registered at locations that they moved from, or in some cases, never lived at.”

Kranjac told Heartlander News that by allowing noncitizens to have the same rights as citizens, the state has created a culture of corruption that has infected the government.

“As a sanctuary state, New Jersey has consistently catered to individuals who come here illegally,” he added. “It’s time for New Jersey to reverse these policies that ignore the rule of law and encourage corruption.”

Kranjac ran for governor of the state in 2025 as a pro-Trump reformer, calling on the state “to return to normal.”

“Governor Mikie Sherrill has refused to take the lead on this issue because election security is deeply unpopular with the Democrat establishment,” he told Heartlander News. “New Jersey deserves leaders who will fight to ensure that illegal votes don’t cancel out the votes of our own citizens.”

A request for comment by Heartlander News to Sherrill’s office was unanswered by publication time.