EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to clarify a quote by the Secretary of State in the last paragraph.

VALDOSTA – Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger visited area Rotary Clubs Wednesday to “set the record straight” about what did and didn’t happen in the 2020 election and to push voter citizen-only voting.

“So, what I want to do today is talk about the fall election. … There has been an awful lot of misinformation out there,” he told a joint meeting of the Valdosta Rotary Club and the Valdosta North Rotary Club.

Raffensperger said several allegations were made regarding how the votes were counted, such as votes being incorrectly skipped in the 2020 presidential race. He said 28,000 Georgia residents skipped the presidential election but they voted in their local races.

“They voted for local sheriffs, state reps, congressmen. What’s interesting is that your Republican congressmen in the state of Georgia collectively received 33,000 more votes than President Trump,” Raffensperger said. “That’s why he came up short.”

Raffensperger said in light of the controversy, he sent a 10-page letter to Congress after collecting the election’s data points on Jan. 6, 2021 to address any concern. Trump’s campaign claimed Georgia’s voter fraud included 10,315 dead, 66,000 underage, 2,423 unregistered and 2,056 felon voters.

State officials eventually debunked those allegations, saying there were only four dead voters, 74 potential felon votes and zero underage and unregistered voters.

Raffensperger said a great way to curb any potential fraud would be to adopt a photo identification method via license or any other government ID.

“I can tell you my No. 1 favorite thing: photo ID. I think it is so solid because it is objective. Driver’s license with a photo and ID number? Who can argue with that? I think that objective criteria appeals to voter security and confidence because it removes any doubt,” he said.

Raffensperger added one of his biggest concerns with the voting process is making sure American citizens are the only ones voting. He had asked the General Assembly to make a constitutional amendment to ensure only American citizens could vote in Georgia.

“State law says only American citizens could vote but the Georgia Constitution actually says ‘All American citizens can vote.’ It doesn’t say what non-citizens can do. It’s much easier to change a state law than it is a constitution,” he said.

He added that a large majority of both political parties “of all demographics” want only American citizens to have a say in any election.

Later Wednesday afternoon, Raffensperger released a statement about his office’s first citizenship review of Georgia’s voter rolls in the state’s history. 

“The review found that that 12 people who had attempted to register to vote in Lowndes County were not able to be verified by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program,” according to the statement; “1,634 individuals were identified and prevented from registering in total across Georgia.”

Due to Georgia’s existing citizenship check procedures, the non-citizens identified in the citizenship check were placed into “pending citizenship” status and were not able to vote, according to the statement.

During a question session during the Rotary meeting, member Ford Bowen asked Raffensperger about some of the accountability measures in place for votes. The Secretary of State said the state still has signature matches to ensure “everything has been properly processed.” Any mismatch would have three days to be resolved.

Rotary President-elect Steve Boatner asked about forensic auditing and voting, Raffensperger claimed voting machines’ firmware and software were sent to a third party to see if there was any manipulation; none was found during the 2020 election.

Raffensperger concluded by mentioning that Georgia’s Republican party is still reeling from its loss in the past election.

“We’re absolutely astounded and shocked that we lost. It’s a grieving process. You know the five stages of grief? My party is still in one of those stages,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we’re really (confident) that 28,000 Georgians skipped the presidential election and voted locally, because that explains why those elected (Republican Congressmen) got 33,000 more votes than Trump and why he came up short.”