♪ ♪ >> From NJ PBS Studios, this is "NJ Spotlight News" with Briana Vannozzi.

>> Hello, and thanks for joining us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gagis.

Briana Vannozzi's off.

Coming up, NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri eflects on the World Cup transit plan and looks ahead at the agency's three and a half billion dollar budget.

And later, did you know New Jersey has a state museum?

It's filled with history, including an exhibit for our 250th anniversary.

We'll get you an inside look.

But first, the state chair of Republican Party, Christine Hamlin, joins us to talk election security here in New Jersey.

That's next.

Funding for NJ Spotlight News provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn more at rwjbh.org.

-Major news out of Trenton today.

Governor Sherrill announced that 6,600 non-citizens in New Jersey were registered to vote due to a software error at the DMV.

This happened between June 2023 and June 2024.

Sherrill says that those registered were a mix of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and of those registered, 400 actually voted in an election.

She said this error quote "didn't happen under my watch, but accountability starts now," saying she's taken several steps to prevent something like this from happening again, including firing the vendor that worked with the DMV.

Now this comes on the heels of the state GOP and the Republican National Committee filing a lawsuit against the state for a voting provision that allows some non-New Jersey residents overseas to vote in our elections.

Christine Hanlon is the head of the state GOP, who knows a thing or two about elections as the Monmouth County clerk.

She joins us now as part of our Under the Dome series.

Christine, so great to have you on the show.

Thanks for taking some time.

I wanna start with the news of the day.

Of course, Governor Sherrill coming out today and explaining that there was a software system error at the DMV and these 6,600 people registered to vote who were not legally registered to vote, 400 of them voted.

What's your reaction to this news?

Well, I feel like Republicans in many ways have been vindicated by this news.

But also there's a lot more work to be done.

So we in the New Jersey GOP did an election integrity task force a few months ago.

We were called fear mongers, conspiracy theorists.

And one of our biggest findings was that there were many non-citizens on the New Jersey voter rolls and we were criticized for bringing this to light.

But this has gone back many years where Republicans have voiced their concerns about the issues with the voter rolls in New Jersey and one of the issues being non-citizens on the voter rolls and it was just dismissed outright.

So this is really interesting to see the governor today come out and say that there were actually as we had identified many many thousands of non-citizens on the voter rolls and they I believe identified about 400 who had voted but this was only one issue and for a certain time period I believe that there's much more work to be done because we've identified non-citizens on the voter rolls who are outside that time period so the software glitch really has nothing to do with those issues so I believe like a comprehensive review really needs to be done with respect to New Jersey voter rolls and you shouldn't really ask you sorry go ahead go ahead I don't know go ahead you know you can't like just say oh well it was only 400 people who may have voted you know elections in New Jersey oftentimes come down to a small number of votes and personally I don't believe that's all encompassing that number as I said because we've identified non-citizens on the voter rolls outside of that time period.

Let me jump in here because there's a lot I want to get to and another issue that I know that the New Jersey GOP has taken up is a state law that allows US citizens born abroad to vote in federal elections if their parent, their guardian, or their spouse was eligible to vote in New Jersey in the last election.

The New Jersey GOP, you leading that, has sued the state.

Why?

Well, we believe that this state law violates the New Jersey Constitution which requires you to be a resident of the state in order to vote in New Jersey.

Now, how does this differ from living in Pennsylvania and being eligible to vote in New Jersey?

It's kind of the same thing.

You can't live in Pennsylvania or Florida or New York and say, "Well, my parents live in New Jersey, so I should be able to vote there."

"It really flies in the face of the Constitution, and we have joined with the Republican National Committee and one of our congressional candidates, Michael McGuire, to sue based on the unconstitutionality of this statute."

"We did reach out to the Attorney General's office, and they had said that they look forward to responding to this lawsuit in court, that they will continue to ensure that eligible military and overseas voters are able to cast their ballots in state elections.

I know that will be fought in court.

So, right, so they're responding with the non issue because nothing about our lawsuit really has anything to do with military voters.

So it's really trying to cloud the issue.

You know, the NJ GOP and the RNC fully support, you know, eligible members of the military and eligible overseas voters to be able to cast their ballots.

They are not- Which by the way, which is protected under the Federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.

As I know you know, the New Jersey law does take it further than that federal law in terms of who is eligible.

I want to ask your thoughts on the US Supreme Court allowing mail-in ballots to be counted if they are cast on election day.

Do you believe that that was the right decision for New Jersey for our country?

Personally, I do not believe it was the right decision.

I think that, but I understand, you know, they kind of left it to the states.

But in my opinion, elections really should be over on election day at the close of the polls.

And it leads to a lot of voter angst and voters questioning the outcome of an election when elections can change two weeks later.

Because in New Jersey, ballots are allowed to come in for, you know, six days after Election Day.

And unfortunately, within the first 48 hours, they don't even really, I'm sorry, within the first 48 hours after Election Day, they don't even really have to be postmarked.

It is assumed that they were voted in time.

So there are a lot of issues to me that really need to be addressed and the election process tightened up.

But, you know, the Supreme Court made their ruling.

I understand what they did.

I don't necessarily agree with that ruling.

You are the Monmouth County clerk.

You have overseen elections in the state.

I want to, tying in that Supreme Court decision, what you just said, with what the president announced to the country last week in a statement, he said, excuse me, in an address, he said that we have shocking vulnerabilities in our election system.

And we have a lot of people who are not eligible to vote.

And we have a lot of people who are not eligible to vote.

And we have a lot of people who are not eligible to vote.

And so I think that's, you know, the non-citizen issue and allowing people who are not eligible to vote to vote.

You know, there are issues with really verification of individuals who should be, you know, how do you verify who they are when they are voting because we don't require ID when people are voting.

And I believe we should require ID.

So I think there's always room to improve, just like years ago, when we, there were allegations made relating to, you know, Russian hacking and and issues like that, where states across the country, looked at their systems and said, how can we make improvements to the systems, election integrity should be a nonpartisan issue, and election security should be a nonpartisan issue.

I would have to see more about some of these issues relating to how any, you know, interference took place, just like years ago that I analyzed what happened.

And, you know, took it on a case by case basis.

But I think there's always room for improvement.

And we should always be looking at how do we make things better and more secure.

So much more we could talk about, but we have to leave it there.

Christine Hanlon, State Chair of the New Jersey Republican Party and the Monmouth County Clerk.

Thanks so much for being with us today.

Thank you.

Have a great day.

Under the Dome is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.

It was the biggest test NJ Transit has ever faced, moving hundreds of thousands of soccer fans to and from eight World Cup matches at MetLife Stadium.

It was a challenge that took years of planning to execute.

And while the tournament's final price tag is still being calculated, it comes at a pivotal moment for the agency.

NJ Transit just adopted a $3.5 billion budget.

I sat down with the NJ Transit president and CEO, Chris Coluri, to break it all down.

Chris, great to see you.

On the heels of the final match of the World Cup in East Rutherford on Sunday, you declared that the curse of the 2014 Super Bowl is over.

And it got me thinking, is that the reason why we've had all these transit troubles all these years?

Was that actually a curse?

Well, I can tell you as it relates to the events, the FIFA game was the biggest we've ever hosted and we were able to over eight games successfully implement our transportation plan and move a record number of people.

The cloud I was talking about dealt specifically with making sure that New Jersey Transit handles large-scale events and I think we proved that without a doubt.

How would you rate the performance of NJ Transit?

I mean what both from moving the fans in and out to rerouting regular commuters.

Would you say you hit the marks you wanted?

Well, look, I mean, I think my view is less important, but the fans, the people who took the system, their views are more important to me because they are the ones who ultimately decide whether we did a good job.

And I think uniformly, if you look at the experience of the people who took the system to get to the games, it was an extraordinary, extraordinarily positive feedback we've gotten.

At the same time, look, I also know that the bread and butter of this agency are the commuters.

And what I can tell them is that for a couple of years, we've had a dual mission of dealing with FIFA, as we were also trying to provide a service to the commuters.

And now that that is over, we can singularly focus on the commuters, which is what we try to do.

The big question for a lot of people is what did it cost?

And I know you don't have those numbers yet.

I did see that you said it would take a couple of weeks.

We do know, though, that you planned for about 40,000 riders per match and only hit about somewhere a little more than half of that.

We've seen some rough calculations that maybe there's a $13 million shortfall there.

Is that something that you have even a rough estimate for yet?

And when will you have real numbers?

Yeah, look, a couple of, I think, words matter.

Planned for is not what I've ever said.

I said we have a capacity for 40,000 people.

And we as I said we've moved a record number of people at three hundred and seventy thousand people to and from the games.

What I have said to anybody who was asked is our CFO has started the process of reconciling the actual budget to the proposed budget we announced in April.

That work will take three weeks or so.

At the end of it, whatever the number is and if there is a Delta, I'll be the first person to share that without violating the three principles of a word is always laid out.

Number one is there will not be a commuter surcharge.

Number two I will not go back to the legislature and ask for more money.

And number three there will not be service cuts.

The governor's a record budget increase we will live within that.

Yeah let's talk about that record budget increase.

NJ Transit just approved its fiscal year budget an 11% increase in spending for this fiscal year.

It's a total of $3.5 billion.

I'm telling you what you already know.

Let me ask you this.

We've talked for years about this pending $1 billion shortfall that the agency was facing.

How does this budget reconcile that?

Yeah, look, I think corporate transit fees was a huge part of the solution.

I know it expires in a couple of years, but I think the fact that we get almost $850 million or roughly in that order is a big part of making sure that we don't have a budget shortfall.

But there's something more fundamental in what the governor has tried to do with this budget.

The governor's objective is to make sure we ultimately get this agency to provide the kind of reliable service that the customers expect.

The only way you can do that is by funding both the operations as well as the capital needs of the organization.

This governor more than anybody else has literally said we will make the improvements that we promised whether it is cleaning the stations, cleaning the buses and trains or buying new buses and rail cars.

We are trying to do all of it with the singular goal of making sure we improve reliability on the system.

The Governor has a $302 million direct subsidy in state aid.

That's $20 million more than what the Governor even had proposed.

And so where you ended up was higher than perhaps even where this Governor started.

Has she indicated whether that's a one-off?

I'm going to ask you a two-part question.

So let's start with that.

Has she indicated whether this will be consistent?

Are we there yet to even know what next year could look like?

How do you plan from a financial spending point of view?

- Yeah, a bit of a correction that there's not an extra $20 million.

What essentially happened during the budget process is they swapped out one funding for another.

That's all that happened.

So our 11% increase still stands, which is what the governor promised when she gave the budget address.

It's just that during the budget process, they swapped out one funding for another.

Secondly, and I think the point that you're raising is what is the predictability of funding look like in the out years, which is exactly what the governor has talked about.

If we can make sure that New Jersey Transit never repeats its history again, which is for 35 out of the 47 years we've been in existence, we have not had a stable funding source.

What the governor is trying to do is to make sure we correct the course and make sure we meet our obligations so we can provide the reliable service the customers are asking for.

That's all the governor's trying to do and that's all I'm trying to do.

This comes as residents, riders saw a 3% fare increase yet again this is year over year.

Do you see that fare increase as somewhat permanent, something that riders can expect for years to come?

Do you see any end date to that increase?

Yeah, look, I think let me sort of broadly talk about why that is.

Predictable funding is the only way you can make sure you build a reliable system, especially when the rate of return on a system like this is 34 cents.

That literally means we need a subsidy every morning for every dollar that we spend, because that's the nature of a mass transit system.

That is just not New Jersey transit.

That's how every mass transit system around the world works, except for maybe the one in Hong Kong.

What we're trying to also say is, to put our real estate that we own into play, so we can essentially try to lower the cost of running the system and not put it all on the commuters and also try to spread that a little bit around.

- Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth.

You've talked a lot about transit oriented development.

Do you have any plans there in the works?

Anything that you can share that would be a revenue driver for the agency?

Yeah, look, I just in the last several weeks, we put out almost 11 properties of interest to the market and the demand and the and the excitement is palpable.

What I'll say about that is I don't want this to be one off transactions where it makes sense to sell we will sell but what makes sense to me is to make sure New Jersey Transit is in these property development deals for a very long period of time so we get money every single year.

Metro Park is a good example of that even if it is $400,000 a year from each property that and if you add up 50 60 properties now you're talking about substantial amounts of money that's how I think we make sure we defray the cost of running the business and not put it all on the community all right we've got to leave it there but good stuff thank you Chris Calori president and CEO of NJ Transit and executive director of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority thank you so much Finally tonight as we continue to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary, we take a look at the New Jersey State Museum.

Not many people know it exists, but it's located right next to the state capitol and it offers a unique glimpse into the centuries of history from right here in New Jersey, including significant people and events that contributed to the founding of our nation.

I recently spoke with Margaret O'Reilly, executive director of the New Jersey State Museum, about all there is to see there.

Margaret, thanks so much for coming on the show.

We have this gem of art and history right in our state's capital.

Can you tell me about the New Jersey State Museum and what it offers?

Sure.

Thanks for having us today to learn about the state museum.

We've been around since 1895.

We're one of the oldest state museums in the country.

And we have collections in archeology, cultural history, fine art, and natural history.

And all of that is pulled together by a wonderful education staff and programming that brings it all together and brings it to life for New Jersey's lifelong learners.

New Jersey has so much culture, so much natural history, and I know that many of the exhibits demonstrate that.

Can you talk through some specific, some examples of some of our culture and history that are on display there?

Sure.

At the moment, the whole state, in fact, the whole country is celebrating America's 250th anniversary.

So we have some wonderful exhibitions that talk about what happened during the revolution, how those documents, those actions from those patriotic folks back then impacted what we do today.

So we really hope folks will come and see that exhibition that we did in partnership with the New Jersey State Archives.

You can see New Jersey's original constitution.

You can see New Jersey's copy of the Bill of Rights.

And that'll be here through January.

We also have exhibitions in natural history.

So you can see New Jersey dinosaurs, who doesn't love a dinosaur.

So folks come in and see those.

You can see scientists working in our laboratory at the same time, doing real science in real time.

We also have exhibitions.

Yeah, just can we touch on that archaeology piece a bit because New Jersey is so rich with prehistoric specimens and it's not something that people always connect as right here in New Jersey.

Right, in fact that's our paleontology program, not our archaeology program.

But yeah, folks don't realize that this was one of the places that dinosaurs were discovered in the early part of excavation for dinosaurs.

The Haddonfield dinosaur was discovered in South Jersey by the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, but we have a cast of that dinosaur here and that's New Jersey's state dinosaur.

And if you ask any five or six-year-old, they can tell you the names of all the dinosaurs that roam New Jersey.

So we invite adults to come and visit and find out about those treasures as well.

I know there's also Margaret, a lot of history here in New Jersey, beyond you mentioned the 250th anniversary.

But there's other history as well.

Can you talk about World War II and some of the artists who came from that, that era?

Sure.

The state museum has a wonderful collection of American art.

We highlight New Jersey artists and New Jersey scenes in that story.

If you walk through our galleries, it's a history of American art.

If you look at particular time periods, like post-World War II, a lot of artists had to leave Europe and come to the United States.

They were fleeing persecution.

They were fleeing what Hitler was doing.

They were coming here and they were bringing their ideas, which were much more avant-garde than American ideas at the time.

And you can see in our galleries where those artists influenced American artists and American art and things changed at that point after World War II.

The post 1945 era as lots of art historians call it.

And art became very different.

It wasn't bucolic.

It wasn't those landscape scenes that we used to see previously.

Art changed in very exciting and explosive ways.

You can see that right in our galleries.

>> I know that there are beyond just the exhibitions, there are programs that the museum offers.

Can you talk us through what we might find in some of the different seasons of the year?

>> Throughout the year, families, individuals, school groups can find all kinds of programming here.

It's all object-based.

Everything we do is related to the collections that we offer.

So you can come and learn about the science programs I just talked about.

You can learn about Native Americans, the Lenape, the original people, the indigenous people that were the inhabitants of New Jersey before the European contact period.

You can come and learn about the history of New Jersey through objects.

And you can have an astronomy lesson, go to our planetarium and learn about astronomy.

All of our programs for school children meet the core curriculum standards of New Jersey.

And so we're really pleased that nearly 40% of our attendance is school groups.

But there's plenty for families, there's plenty for individuals.

During the summer, we have drop-in programs every day.

Come and make some crafts with us, see a planetarium show during the week, and we have lectures on science and history throughout the year.

How many people, I know this is a hard question to answer, how many people still don't know about the New Jersey State Museum, don't even realize all this history that's right there in the Capitol?

I think lots of people don't know about the State Museum.

I think they think of the big museums in New York and Philadelphia, but here's this gem that's been around a very long time that has world class collections, world class research, and world class programs right in their backyard.

And the wonderful thing about the State Museum, it's free.

Admission is free to the State Museum.

So in these days when costs can be high for folks, we're certainly a great resource and a great value for families.

When can people come?

What are the hours for anyone who's watching this and says, "Hey, this is a great thing for me to do with the family or just by myself."

We are open Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m.

to 4 45 p.m.

and on weekends parking is free in the lots behind and adjacent to the State Museum.

All right, there it is right there.

Margaret O'Reilly, Executive Director of the New Jersey State Museum.

Thank you so much.

Thanks so much, Joanna.

That's going to do it for us tonight.

I'm Joanna Gaggis.

For the entire team here at NJ Spotlight News, thanks for being with us.

We'll see you right back here tomorrow.

NJM Insurance Group, serving the insurance needs of residents and businesses for more than 100 years.

(laughing) Is that... Wow!

[MUSIC PLAYING] It's going to be OK.

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