CNN host admits he was wrong to say illegal immigrant voting 'never happens' after New Jersey error

CNN and SiriusXM host Michael Smerconish acknowledged Wednesday on "The Michael Smerconish Program" that he could no longer claim noncitizen voting never occurred after New Jersey disclosed that a software error improperly registered roughly 6,600 noncitizens and fewer than 400 cast ballots."I can’t say that any longer," Smerconish said. "I don’t know how often it does happen, but I can’t say any longer, ‘This never happens.’"

Smerconish said he had previously reached the opposite conclusion after discussing a January New York Times analysis titled "Initial Review Finds No Widespread Illegal Voting by Migrants, Puncturing a Trump Claim." The analysis found no evidence of widespread fraud but noted that noncitizens sometimes appeared on voter rolls.Smerconish said the New Jersey disclosure would give President Donald Trump and his allies a lasting response when opponents disputed that noncitizen voting occurred.

GOP ERUPTS OVER 6,600 NONCITIZEN VOTERS FOUND IN BLUE STATE AS SCANDAL DEEPENS: ‘WORSE THAN ANYONE EXPECTED’"'Well, what about New Jersey?' See, it actually does happen," Smerconish said, in a clip flagged by Mediaite.Political analyst Mark Halperin agreed that the disclosure undercut categorical claims about noncitizen voting while cautioning that more information was needed before conclusions could be reached about its scale."

Based on what we now know, the thing that Democrats said doesn’t happen happened," Halperin said. "And it’s not right to take the word of the Democratic governor of New Jersey about what actually happened."Halperin called for an independent investigation into how the registrations occurred, whether the same problem appeared elsewhere and whether New Jersey’s estimate captured the full extent of the error.

WATCH: TRUMP DOJ VOWS TO PURSUE ‘EVERY SINGLE’ VOTING VIOLATION AFTER NJ ROLL SHOCKER"If it happened by accident on this small scale, it requires a lot more explanation and investigation about whether it’s happened in New Jersey more or