Today's Poll Question: Is New Jersey's mistakenly registering 6,600 non-citizens to vote an aberration, or the norm?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:08)
Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:11)
For Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:14)
Hi everybody, here's yesterday's poll result. I'm getting used to saying this. Just a tick under 30,000 votes were cast, 29,459.
Which is worse, continuing the war with Iran or cutting off the funding for it?
29,459 voted and 70.78% said, continuing the war is worse. Well, the funding is not being cut because yesterday the House passed a massive defense bill. I'm reading from the Hill. Six Democratic House lawmakers crossed the aisle on Wednesday to join a majority of Republicans passing a nearly 1.15 trillion annual defense policy bill. The Democrats who backed the 2027, they call it the National Defense Authorization Act, all have a reputation of breaking with their party on key issues. Many are running for election in swing districts in November. And then they list them. Independent Kevin Kiley, who changed his affiliation from Republican earlier this year, all also supported the legislation. And seven lawmakers opposed the passage. But the bill passed. So that's the update in that regard. Today's poll question, love this.
New Jersey mistakenly registered 6,600 non-citizens to vote, and 400 did so.
Is that an aberration or the norm? We talked about it yesterday on the program. We'll talk about it again today with a very special guest. I'll be curious to see how this poll result turns out.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:52)
The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:55)
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**SPEAKER_2** (3:28)
The Daily Poll Question at smerconish.com.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:31)
A non-scientific social political question designed to spark broader discussions about current issues.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:36)
Get ready to cast your ballot and leave a rating and review of this podcast on your favorite podcast app.

**Michael Smerconish** (3:42)
Let me try and set this up. Much of this you know, but I have to tell the whole story. Last Thursday night, so a week ago tonight, my gosh, what a week this has been. Last Thursday night, the president delivers a speech. He delivers it in prime time. He asks the network and the cable affiliates for coverage, says he's got something important to say.
What did he say? He said that the 2020 election cycle, in that cycle, the People's Republic of China had carried out, quote, what is believed to have been the largest compromise of election data in our history? 220 million voter files, he said, bought, stolen or hacked. Notice he hasn't followed up on that, and when questioned by the media this week, like, hey, you know, you made that big speech, and what are you going to do about it? He said essentially nothing. He also said that the Intel community knew about China and buried it, that 220 million voter files had been bought, stolen or hacked across 18 states. He said Americans have been blatantly lied to about the security of our elections, called the electronic voting machines a, quote, cyber threat aimed at the heart of our democracy, pointed to FBI files about voter registration in an operation in Michigan. And then, most importantly, for our purposes today, he said that the Department of Homeland Security had identified, quote, approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections. And Mark Wayne Mullen, the Secretary of Homeland Security, had already put a version of this on the record. He said 250,000 non-citizens registered in four states, 190,000 in California, 35,000 in New Jersey, 15,000 in Nevada, and 14,000 in Pennsylvania. Just hold that 35,000 number from Jersey off to the side for a moment, okay? And then at the end of the speech, he said Congress has to pass the Save America Act, proof of citizenship to register, tightened ID requirements at the polls. So that was the pitch. And what ended up happening? ABC, NBC and CNN, as we've talked about, didn't carry it or didn't carry it live, okay?