ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has obtained an audit of the state’s voter rolls and found that the state’s election system is generally effective in preventing non-citizens from registering to vote.
The audit estimated that no more than 0.1% of voter registration records would have allowed someone to vote despite an unverified identity, invalid address, or citizenship-related issue.
Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray obtained the audit that also showed there is still some work to be done, finding there were significant instances where people who appeared to be non-citizens were placed into active voter status because of human error and control weaknesses.
We’re sitting down with the Secretary of State’s Office to get reaction to the audit, for LIVE updates starting on Channel 2 Action News at 4 p.m.
The auditors reviewed roughly 8 million voter registrations and concluded that problems they identified represented a very small fraction of the voter rolls.
It did not find evidence of widespread fraud.
“The Secretary of State and county registrars’ processes related to voter rolls comply with statutory requirements and generally align with best practices,” the audit found.
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The audit found that about 2,570 potential non-citizens were at some point in active or inactive voter status because of administrative failures. According to the audit, 407 of those registrations had a voting history.
The problems largely stemmed from DDS citizenship-status errors and county verification failures, the audit found.
The audit places most of the blame on errors in the driver’s license process and county verification failures, not intentional registration by non-citizens.
Overall, the audit said it mainly came down to human error with DDS workers misclassifying immigration documents as proof of citizenship, improperly coding non-citizens as U.S. citizens, or submitting automatic voter registration applications before citizenship status had been properly verified.
The report also found county registrars approved at least 395 voter registrations after DDS records indicated the applicants were non-citizens, even though counties were supposed to obtain citizenship documentation before activating those registrations.
Auditors said there are controls are in place to ensure only eligible voters are registered and that voter lists are maintained, but they identified several areas needing improvement.