Cobb Reporter

A citizenship review shows that over 1,600 noncitizens had attempted to register to vote in Georgia.

The Georgia Secretary of State highlighted the results of an audit in a recent release, stating the review found 1,634 people who had attempted to register to vote in the state but were not able to be verified by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.

"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."

Authorities insist that none of the individuals who were flagged were allowed to cast a ballot. Instead, the release states those identified in the citizenship check were placed into a “pending citizenship” status and were not able to vote in any Georgia election. 

In total, over 2,200 voter registration applications currently hold this status. 

Raffensperger has previously 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 to the state constitution 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. Democrat members of the Senate opposed the measure while Republican members supported the addition of the amendment.