Supreme Court allows Virginia to continue purging voter registration

WASHINGTON – On Wednesday, the Supreme Court allowed Virginia to resume voter registration purges that the state says are intended to prevent people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

The justices, over the objections of three liberal justices, granted an emergency appeal from Virginia’s Republican administration, led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The court did not provide any justification for its action, which is typical for extraordinary complaints.

The justices granted Virginia’s appeal after a federal judge found that the state illegally deleted more than 1,600 voter registrations over the past two months. A federal appeals court previously allowed the judge’s ruling to stand.

Such voting is rare in U.S. elections, but the specter of illegal immigrants voting has been a central part of former President Donald Trump and other Republicans’ political messages this year.

Trump criticized the earlier ruling, calling it a “totally unacceptable travesty” on social media.
“Only US citizens should be able to vote,” Trump wrote.

The Justice Department and a coalition of private groups sued the state in early October, arguing that Virginia election officials, acting on an order Youngkin issued in August, were striking names from voter rolls in violation of federal election law.

The National Voter Registration Act requires a 90-day “quiet period” before elections to maintain voter rolls so that legitimate voters are not removed from the rolls as a result of bureaucratic or last-minute mistakes that cannot be quickly corrected.

Youngkin issued his executive order on August 7, the 90th day before the election. This required daily checking of data from the state Department of Motor Vehicles against voter rolls to identify non-U.S. citizens.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said election officials could still remove names individually, but not through a systematic purge. Court records show that at least some of the people whose registrations were removed are U.S. citizens.

Giles ordered the state to notify affected voters and local registrars by Wednesday to restore registration.

Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote.

In a similar lawsuit in Alabama, a federal judge ordered the state to restore the eligibility of more than 3,200 voters who were deemed ineligible foreign nationals. Testimony by state officials in the case showed that approximately 2,000 of the 3,251 voters who were considered inactive were actually legally registered citizens.