According to a new audit, 1,634 noncitizens have been “flagged” for trying to illegally vote in Georgia.
The potential voters have since been placed in “pending citizenship” status, removing them from consideration to be added to the state’s voter rolls. The report noted that none of the individuals have attempted to vote in recent elections.
According to a report from The Washington Examiner:
“Ensuring that only citizens are voting in Georgia’s elections is key to upholding the integrity of the vote in Georgia,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement. “As liberal states and cities around the country are changing their laws to allow noncitizen voting, I will continue to take steps to ensure Georgia’s elections are executed with integrity.”
The review was conducted through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ System Alien Verification for Entitlements program, which provides immigration status information to government entities. Some states, such as Colorado and Arizona, reportedly use the system as an extra method to check their voter rolls.
Georgia officials partnered with the Department of Driver Services to identify potential ineligible voters before sending an initial list through the SAVE process. The audit found a total of 2,258 applicants with a “pending citizenship” status, with 624 lacking the necessary information to be verified through the USCIS system.
“As soon as you see that they were born in a foreign country, then the next question logically was going to be the proof of your citizenship,” Raffensperger told the Washington Examiner. “If they don’t present that, then they are not registered to vote.”
Raffensperger defended the audit as accurate and also noted that if anyone was accidentally added to the list the issue can quickly be remedied by bringing proof of citizenship to the polling station.
The secretary of state’s office plans to reach out to the individuals listed as ineligible to verify whether they were accurately flagged as noncitizens. The office will then prosecute those who registered illegally.
