South Fulton Today

The state's first-ever citizenship review found upwards of 1,600 people that sought to vote were not able to be verified by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.

In a recent release, the Georgia Secretary of State highlighted the results of the audit, stating the review found 1,634 people who had attempted to register to vote in the state.

"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 the release. "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. Leading the state’s first citizenship audit of the voter rolls is an important part of that effort."

In total, over 2,200 voter registration applications are currently in the "pending citizenship" status, the release states. Due to the state’s current citizenship check procedures, those identified in the citizenship check were placed into the “pending citizenship” status and were not able to vote in any Georgia election.

On top of the review, Raffensperger has come out in favor of legislation that would allow for an amendment to the state constitution barring non-citizens from voting, according to a recent report by FOX 5 Atlanta. 

While he announced his support for the amendment to be added in January, the proposal fell short of the two-thirds majority needed in the Georgia Senate for a constitutional amendment on a party-line vote, the report states. Among voters, Democrat members of the Senate opposed the measure while Republican members supported the addition of the amendment.