ATL Standard

Results of Georgia's first-ever citizenship review showed over 1,600 noncitizens had attempted to register to vote in the state.

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, a recent news release from the Georgia Secretary of State's office said.

"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."

Due to the state's current citizenship-check procedures, those identified in the citizenship check were placed into "pending citizenship" status and were not allowed to vote in any Georgia election, the release said. In total, over 2,200 voter registration applications currently hold this status. 

Raffensperger has previously favored legislation that would allow for an amendment to the state constitution barring noncitizens from voting, a recent report by FOX 5 Atlanta said. 

The legislation fell short of the two-thirds majority needed in the Georgia Senate for a constitutional amendment on a party-line vote, the report said. Democratic members of the Senate opposed the measure while Republican members supported the addition of the amendment.