Opinion: Fighting Stacey Abrams’ blue wave of undocumented voters

Stacey Abrams’ lawsuit going to trial this month has brought Georgia back to 2018 in more ways than one.

Weeks before her November 2018 loss to now-Governor Brian Kemp by 55,000 votes, Abrams told a crowd that the “Blue Wave” is comprised of those who are “documented and undocumented,” i.e. noncitizens who cannot vote in Georgia’s elections. 4 years later, Abrams and her allies are pushing in court to make good on that promise and outlaw voter citizenship verification in Georgia.

That is why I am standing in the gap, ready to fight this effort to undermine the integrity of Georgia’s elections until the Supreme Court if necessary.

Georgia has one of the best citizenship checks for voter registration in the country. But, to ensure no noncitizens were on Georgia’s voter rolls, I recently ordered a full audit of our voter rolls using updated data from the Department of Driver Services and the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. I found 1,600 noncitizens who had attempted to register to vote and referred them to local prosecutors for further investigation and prosecution.

The reality is that neither the federal constitution nor Georgia’s state constitution have specific language limiting the right to vote to American citizens. Since my 2018 campaign for Secretary of State, I have called for a citizens-only voting amendment to Georgia’s constitution to rectify that. Unfortunately, Democrats in the state legislature deprived the commonsense measure of the 2/3 majority it needed to be put on the ballot in November.

Instead, it is only federal and state law that stand in the way of Abrams’ planned blue wave of non-citizen voters. But Abrams has made clear, through her 2018 comments and her current lawsuit, that she will do whatever she can to add noncitizens, “documented and undocumented,” to the voter rolls.

Her liberal allies around the country have made significant headway on that front. New York City recently added around 800,000 noncitizens to its voter rolls. San Francisco too has allowed noncitizens to vote for years.

The sad part is that Abrams and her allies know that citizens-only voting is overwhelmingly popular. A January 2022 poll found that 80 percent of Georgians support a citizens-only voting amendment to the Georgia constitution. Even 70 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of self-described progressives support a citizens-only voting amendment. Citizens only voting has the support of 78 percent of Black/African American voters in Georgia.

Given such overwhelming, bipartisan support for citizens-only voting, it’s hard to understand why Abrams and her allies are trying to push noncitizen voting through the courts. Nonetheless, Abrams and her allies have resorted to using the courts to legislate on their behalf.

That is why I have been fighting so hard to ensure only American citizens can vote in Georgia elections. Last year, I renewed my call for a citizens-only amendment to the Georgia constitution. I completed the first citizenship-check of the voter rolls in the state’s history and referred more than 1,600 noncitizens who had attempted to register to local district attorneys, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and the State Election Board for further investigation and prosecution.

I will continue to fight Abrams and her allies in court to ensure they cannot override the will of the voters and undermine citizenship checks in Georgia’s elections. I have beaten back much of Abrams’ case already and I will continue to fight Abrams and her allies until the Supreme Court, if necessary. I will not back down.

Raffensperger is Georgia’s secretary of state.

This story was originally published April 24, 2022 at 10:47 AM.