Georgia Secretary of State’s office responds to Trump DOJ threats, defends voting policies

A top lawyer for Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) defended the state’s election procedures in a message to the Department of Justice (DOJ), after it threatened to target election officials with criminal prosecutions over possible noncitizen voting. 

In a letter dated July 13, which Democracy Docket received from a source, Charlene McGowan, Raffensperger’s general counsel, said Georgia already has several different mechanisms to ensure all registered voters in the state are verified U.S. citizens.

“Georgia is a recognized leader in citizenship verification that ensures only U.S. citizens vote in our elections,” the letter reads. “State law requires proof of citizenship to vote, and any application for voter registration must be accompanied by documentation of U.S. citizenship.”

The letter from Raffensperger’s office marks the latest instance of state officials pushing back on the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s warning that election officials could be prosecuted if they knowingly retain noncitizens on the rolls or allow them to receive and cast ballots.

In an extraordinary rebuke last week, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office told DOJ Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon that her threat was unnecessary and improper while demanding that she stop contacting Secretary of State Phil McGrane (R).

Utah officials also criticized Dhillon’s warning in a letter.

McGowan’s letter was more restrained, at times praising Trump’s “commitment to citizenship verification” and “applaud[ing] the administration’s efforts to provide states the necessary tools at the federal level to verify that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote.”

In 2020, Raffensperger refused President Donald Trump’s request to “find 11,780 votes” and help him steal the presidential election, earning him plaudits among some Democrats and Trump opponents. But Raffensperger has also regularly supported GOP-backed measures that make it harder to vote in Georgia.

In the letter to the DOJ, McGowan touted these actions. In particular, she highlighted his support for the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which Trump has retrofitted into a flawed tool for checking the citizenship status of registered voters. 

“Raffensperger was the first Secretary of State in the nation to conduct full citizenship audits of the state’s voter list using the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database, the first of which was completed prior to the 2024 presidential election and the most recent in 2026,” McGowan wrote.

“In addition to the citizenship audits, Georgia also utilizes SAVE to verify the citizenship status of people who have been identified as potential non-citizens at any point,” she added.