Follow-up investigations will be conducted to determine whether they were encouraged to register by activist groups.
An audit conducted by the office of Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger found that 1,634 non-citizens have attempted to register to vote in the Peach State in recent years. All of the non-citizens were caught prior to their being allowed to register by the state’s various verification processes and none were allowed to cast a ballot, per Raffensperger’s office.
“There’s no support anywhere to show that non citizens ever voted in the state of Georgia,” asserted Raffensperger in an interview with National Review.
“We have verified that 1,634 non-citizens attempted to register to vote in Georgia. And so now, our investigators will be interviewing them to find out why they attempted to register,” the secretary of state explained.
Raffensperger said that the aim of these follow-ups would be to determine whether the non-citizens made these attempts of their own accord, or whether they were assisted or encouraged by third-party activist groups.
“The non-citizens will be prosecuted for attempting to register,” promised Raffensperger, who also professed to have a desire “to find out what third party groups are attempting to register them, because we’ve been sued by third party groups that are pushing Georgia to open the doors for non-citizen voting.”
While state law already limits access to the ballot to Americans, Raffensperger has stated his support for an amendment to the state constitution barring non-citizen voting.
The Georgia state senate fell six votes short of the two-thirds majority it would have needed to implement such a measure earlier this year. State Democrats argued that it was a cosmetic proposal meant to motivate the Republican base.
Raffensperger said that the initiative his office showed in carrying out the review — in addition to its findings — shows why Georgia has been lauded by the Heritage Foundation for its management of its voter rolls, as well as for having the most secure elections in the country.
“A lot of people say a lot of things, especially close to [the] 2020 election, but Georgia has struck to talk about of accessibility with security, and that security gives voters confidence that their vote will be counted accurately,” argued Raffensperger.
He also cited the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) as key to the state’s success in keeping its voter rolls current. Thirty-one states — under Republican and Democratic control — currently submit information to the non-profit, which in turn helps member-state keep track of when voters leave or enter their states.
“Majorities of both political parties and majorities of every demographic group say that only American citizens should vote in our elections,” noted Raffensperger, who bragged that his state has the cleanest voter rolls in the country.”
Raffensperger first emerged as a national figure in 2020 when then-President Donald Trump pressured the Republican secretary of state to invalidate enough ballots in the state to give him the state’s electoral votes. Raffensperger refused.
Despite his pivotal role in standing up to Trump’s attempt to overturn the election, Democrats have accused Raffensperger of trying to suppress minority votes, and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has even intervened to try to get him disinvited from private events.