HONOLULU -- A clerical error in New Jersey's application for highly-competitive "Race To The Top" education grants may have cost the state $400 million in federal funding.

Hawaii came in third and will receive $75 million in federal funding in this second round of the national competition. But Hawaii officials made an error on their application in the first round of the competition in February.

Federal officials told New Jersey officials what they told Hawaii officials earlier this year: a deadline is a deadline and a state can't fix mistakes once their application has been submitted.

On Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie -- a Republican -- showed reporters his state's thousand-page application for “Race To The Top” funds that contained an error on one page.

The feds asked the states to compare education spending in 2008 and 2009. Instead, New Jersey mistakenly listed funding levels for 2010 and 2011.

"You're not going to grant the award to New Jersey because of a mistake, a clerical mistake in one piece of paper? That's the stuff that drives people nuts about government," Christie said.

Federal education officials docked five points off New Jersey's score because of the error, so the state’s score ended up just three points lower than Ohio, which came in tenth. The top 10 states will receive funds from the feds. That means New Jersey came in eleventh, losing out on $400 million.

"Are you guys just down there checking boxes like mindless drones?" said Christie.

The Department of Education said the application requirements were clear. “This was not an open-ended process. At some point, we had to say time’s up, pencils down,” according a statement released by the U.S. Department of Education.

“If you can't fill out your application correctly, there is some indication that maybe you don't have the apparatus in place, or the competence, to execute the money that you could win," said Neal McCluskey, an analyst from the CATO Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

A different paperwork error cost Hawaii 25 points in the first round of applications in February. That's when state DOE officials said they forgot to cut and paste a subsection of one part of their application, which was longer than 900 pages.

Hawaii came in 22nd with 16 states chosen as finalists. Only two states ultimately were awarded federal funds in the first round of competition from the list of 16 finalists.

DOE officials realized their omission and contacted the U.S. Department of Education, asking if they could submit the missing portion of the application, said Sandy Goya, spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Education. Federal officials told the DOE they did not allow changes to the applications once the deadlines have passed, Goya said.

Hawaii re-submitted its application in the second round of the competition this summer, coming in third. It was awarded $75 million in federal funds for education reforms statewide.