Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced Wednesday that he recently found 20 noncitizens who were registered to vote and referred them to local law enforcement for prosecution.
Raffensperger said his office conducted a “comprehensive citizenship audit” this summer and “conclusively” found the noncitizens and another 156 possible noncitizens whom his office is still investigating.
The Republican secretary of state said his office cross-references Georgia’s voter rolls with numerous databases to screen regularly for people who need to be removed for reasons such as moving, dying, or otherwise becoming ineligible to vote.
He touted that because of his office’s efforts, Georgia has “the cleanest voter list in the entire nation.”
Raffensperger’s citizenship announcement comes as numerous states, including Texas, Ohio, and Virginia, make announcements in the final weeks of the 2024 election about finding possible noncitizens on their voter rolls. On Tuesday, Ohio Attorney General David Yost revealed that his office was investigating dozens of cases of alleged noncitizen voting and that a grand jury had indicted six people over it.
Gabriel Sterling, another top official in the secretary of state’s office, said “one of the reasons” Raffensperger ordered the summer audit was to boost confidence in the face of polls showing Republicans have widespread concerns that noncitizens are getting away with voting, which is illegal.
“One of the reasons the secretary ordered this non-citizenship audit is to prove to people that while there are ways that some can potentially get on [the registration list], it is ceasingly rare, and especially in a state like Georgia that has very good data management,” Sterling said.
Raffensperger’s press conference comes two weeks ahead of Election Day and as more than 1.9 million people in Georgia have already cast ballots.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Republican secretary of state drew the ire of former President Donald Trump after the 2020 election because Trump felt Raffensperger was allowing alleged voter fraud to occur.
During a now-infamous phone call with Raffensperger weeks after the election, Trump said he wanted to “find 11,780” votes to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in the state. Raffensperger went on to face a Trump-endorsed challenger in his bid for reelection in 2022 and handily won the race.