Raffensperger Announces "Only American Citizen Voting" Audit

Atlanta – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that the Secretary of State’s office is in the process of conducting a SAVE audit of potential non-citizens who may have registered to vote. Using information from the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS), Georgia identifies people who may be non-citizens according to documents they have previously provided to DDS. Georgia is 100% REAL ID compliant, meaning that everyone who has a driver’s license or state identification card has proven their citizenship or legal immigration status to DDS.

Georgia then utilizes SAVE, or Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, a program offered through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to verify the citizenship status of people who have been identified as potential non-citizens.

“This is a vital step in maintaining election security and integrity in Georgia,” Raffensperger said. “We are double-checking to make sure that if any non-citizens attempt to register to vote, they will not be able to vote unless they prove that they are U.S. citizens.”

Attempted registration by non-citizens is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

This audit is a continuation of Georgia’s citizenship verification process, which was recently upheld in court over challenges from left-wing groups such as the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, among others. The results of the audit should be announced in the coming days.

“By saying he would veto the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act, President Biden is saying that he doesn’t want to verify the citizenship status of people attempting to vote. I could not disagree more with that position. In Georgia, we have robust verification procedures in place to make sure the votes of citizens are not diluted by non-citizens. 'Trust but verify' is just common sense,” said Raffensperger.

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Georgia is recognized as a national leader in elections. It was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 17 days of early voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia continues to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election and record turnout in 2020, and 2022. 2022 achieved the largest single day of in-person early voting turnout in Georgia midterm history utilizing Georgia’s secure, paper ballot voting system. Most recently, Georgia ranked #1 for Election Integrity by the Heritage Foundation, a top ranking for Voter Accessibility by the Center for Election Innovation & Research and tied for number one in Election Administration by the Bipartisan Policy Center.