Judge rules in favor of state, allows citizenship verification for voter registration

On Thursday, a federal judge dismissed challenges to Georgia’s citizenship verification requirements for voter registration.

In a statement from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office after the ruling, Sec. Brad Raffensperger said all of the challenges had been dismissed, adding that the ruling followed others in favor of Georgia’s verification processes.

“Ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in our elections is critically important to secure and accurate elections,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “Georgia’s citizenship verification process is common sense and it works. With this ruling, we are able to continue ensuring that only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections.”

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The case against Georgia’s citizenship verification process for voters was brought by a variety of advocates, including the New Georgia Project, Common Cause Georgia and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, among others.

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The lawsuit claimed that the citizenship verification process violated the constitutional rights of Georgia voters and parts of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the National Voter Registration Act.

In previous comments about the case, provided by the Sec. of State’s Office on Tuesday, Raffensperger said verifying citizenship before residents were added to voter rolls was important amid border security issues which he claimed originate with current federal policies by the administration of President Joe Biden.

Raffensperger said the current REAL ID system for voting registration in Georgia worked.

“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,” Raffensperger said in a statement.

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