Most ‘noncitizen voters’ DHS found in Georgia were never voters at all

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security claims to have found about 2,500 noncitizen voters in Georgia, according to a report released during President Donald Trump’s speech Thursday on election security.

But it’s not that simple.

Most of the people flagged by DHS had applied to become registered voters but were in a “pending” status while the state investigated their citizenship status, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Other Georgians on the federal list were registered to vote but later moved to pending after the state received the DHS notification.

Georgia has 8.1 million voters registered to vote as of Friday. But only about 150 registrants identified as possible noncitizens by DHS had previously voted, the secretary of state’s office said.

If a noncitizen wanted to vote in Georgia, there would be many legal hurdles. State law requires voters to show evidence of citizenship before registering to vote. And all voters must show ID before voting in person or by absentee ballot.

The SAVE database, a resource from DHS used to verify citizenship status, has been known to mistakenly flag American citizens as noncitizens in some states that use it to check voter rolls. Despite known inaccuracies in DHS’ system, Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has championed its use.

“As a national leader in election integrity, we continue to urge the Trump administration to restore access to the SAVE database so every state can verify citizenship and maintain accurate voter rolls, as Georgia does,” Raffensperger said in a statement after Trump’s speech.

Noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare. In Georgia, previous citizenship audits conducted by Raffensperger’s office have found minuscule numbers of noncitizen registrants. In 2024, the office found 20. Only nine of those voters had actually voted in a Georgia election.

The SAVE program is used by government agencies across the country to help prevent government benefits from going to noncitizens. Georgia and other states have used it to check voter rolls after the Trump administration expanded its search abilities last year — part of the administration’s efforts to insert the federal government into elections.