Raffensperger Fights in Federal Court to Uphold Citizenship Verification in Georgia Elections
Atlanta – Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is in federal court this week defending Georgia’s practice of verifying U.S. citizenship before allowing individuals to be added to the voter rolls. Being heard this week in U.S. District Court is Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Inc., et al. v. Raffensperger. The plaintiffs are contesting Georgia’s method of citizenship verification during the voter registration process.
“With the Biden Administration’s open border policy, citizenship verification for voter registration is more important than ever,” said Secretary of State Raffensperger.
He strongly condemned the organization and its allies for attempting to undermine crucial citizenship verification, potentially exposing our elections to foreign interference and diluting the will of legally registered voters.
“Organizations like the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda are currently suing to end critical citizenship verification in our registration process. I am strongly against non-citizen voting and will fight all the way to the Supreme Court if I have to.”
Approximately eight out of ten new Georgia voters are automatically registered when they obtain or update their driver’s license, a process administered by the Department of Driver Services (DDS) which verifies citizenship status through REAL ID certification. Secretary Raffensperger highlights the agency’s collaboration with the Department of Driver Services to conduct a comprehensive citizen audit of Georgia’s voter rolls, ensuring that only American citizens participate in the state’s elections.
Raffensperger underscored the efficacy of the current system, stating, "This system works. Failed attempts by figures like Stacey Abrams and her organization, Fair Fight, to challenge citizenship verification in court have been consistently unsuccessful. U.S. elections should be decided by U.S. citizens, and the undocumented ‘blue wave’ will never reach Georgia.”
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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.