Georgia breaks early voting record; more than 2 million cast ballots in person

More than 2 million Georgians have voted early in person, surpassing the total from the entire early-voting period in the 2022 midterm election, according to the Georgia Secretary of State's Office.

As of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, 2,045,533 people had cast ballots in person. Another 100,241 absentee ballots had been accepted, bringing the combined total to nearly 2.1 million.

The state reported overall turnout of 28%, matching the turnout rate at the same point before Election Day in 2022.

In-person early voting is about 22% higher than the 1,640,652 ballots cast during the full 15-day early-voting period in 2022, according to the office.

"Georgia voters deserve the highest praise," Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement.

GA uses a database called “GARVIS” or the georgia registered voter information system.

The net is that non-citizens cannot register to vote, and cannot successfully check-in to vote at a polling location.

I am a long-time GA election official.

HEre’s the full gorp on GARVIS.

**GARViS (Georgia Registered Voter Information System)** is Georgia’s centralized statewide voter registration database, launched in March 2023 under Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. It replaced the older ENet system and serves as the official voter list for all 159 counties.

It hosts millions of records (roughly 12 million total, including active, inactive, and historical), supports online and automatic voter registration, list maintenance, and near-real-time data sharing between state and county officials. It connects via APIs to external sources such as the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS). It has received national recognition for modernizing election administration.

### How citizenship is verified and only U.S. citizens can vote
GARViS is not a standalone citizenship database. It manages voter records, stores eligibility/citizenship-related flags or statuses, and facilitates checks against other systems. U.S. citizenship is a legal requirement to vote in Georgia (and federally).

**Main verification at registration (covers the large majority):**
- Georgia law (since 2010) requires satisfactory evidence of U.S. citizenship for voter registration.
- More than 98% of registrations are checked at the time of registration using DDS REAL ID data. Georgia is fully REAL ID-compliant: people obtaining or renewing a driver’s license or state ID must provide documentation of citizenship or lawful immigration status to DDS. Roughly 98–99.8% of voter registrations are linked to a Georgia REAL ID.
- Online registration requires a valid Georgia DL/ID number, which is matched to DDS records.
- If citizenship cannot be verified that way (or for certain paper applications), the applicant is notified and placed in “Pending Citizenship” status until they provide acceptable documentary proof (e.g., U.S. birth certificate, passport, naturalization certificate, or equivalent). They cannot vote while pending.
- Automatic voter registration (via DDS) is tied to these verified records.

**Ongoing maintenance, cross-checks, and audits:**
- **Jury system**: People who indicate on jury affidavits that they are not U.S. citizens are cross-checked against the voter rolls in GARViS and removed if registered.
- **Federal SAVE database** (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, run by USCIS/DHS): Used especially for audits of potential non-citizens flagged via DDS or other sources. Georgia has used it for citizenship audits and helped push for improvements (batch processing, use of SSNs as identifiers). It is one tool among several, not the sole check.
- Regular statewide citizenship audits by the Secretary of State’s office (conducted in recent years including 2022, 2024, and 2026) and independent reviews. Identified non-citizens are removed; cases can be referred for investigation or prosecution. Federal cases have resulted from these efforts.
- Other standard list-maintenance processes (deaths, felonies, address changes, duplicates, etc.) also run through the system.

### Recent audit findings (2024–2026)
Independent and state reviews have found the rolls highly accurate, with residual issues mainly from human/administrative error rather than systemic fraud:
- A 2026 Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts (DOAA) review of ~7.9 million records found the rolls **99.9% accurate**. Auditors estimated no more than 0.1% of records would have allowed someone to vote with unverified identity, invalid address, or unverified eligibility (including citizenship). Processes generally complied with law and aligned with best practices. More than 98% of registrations were citizenship-checked via REAL ID data at registration.
- That audit identified roughly 2,570–2,600 *potential* non-citizens who at some point had been placed in active or inactive status due to errors (e.g., DDS misclassifying or miscoding immigration documents as proof of citizenship, or county registrars approving registrations before full verification). Of those, about 407 had a voting history. Corrective steps were noted.
- A subsequent Secretary of State’s office audit using expanded SAVE access identified 432 potential noncitizens who had voted at some point since 1996 (many older records predating stricter proof requirements; some already moved to pending status). These were addressed via removal or further review.
- An earlier 2024 audit found only 20 non-citizens on the rolls out of ~8.2 million registered voters (9 with any voting history, mostly older cases). Those registrations were canceled and referred to law enforcement.

Officials emphasize that confirmed non-citizens are removed promptly and that the combination of REAL ID verification, pending status for unverified applicants, jury cross-checks, SAVE audits, and other maintenance keeps the rolls clean by national standards. Residual errors at a very small scale have been attributed primarily to human factors at DDS or county levels rather than intentional widespread non-citizen voting.

In short, GARViS is the central system that integrates DDS REAL ID citizenship data for the vast majority of registrations, tracks pending cases that lack verified proof, and supports multi-source audits and list maintenance to enforce the citizenship requirement. The system relies on pre-verified state ID records plus documentary proof and continuous cross-checks rather than tracking citizenship as a primary independent function.

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