Virginia is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the expulsion of 1,600 voter registrations

WASHINGTON – Virginia asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to intervene to allow the state to remove from its rolls about 1,600 voters it says are foreigners.

The request was filed after a federal appeals court unanimously upheld A’s decision on Sunday federal judge’s order restoring the registration of those 1,600 voters who a judge said were illegally removed by an executive order from the state’s Republican governor.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin says he ordered daily removals to prevent foreigners from voting. But late last week, U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ruled that Youngkin’s program was illegal under federal law because it systematically eliminated voters during the 90-day “quiet period” before the November election.

Department of Justice and a coalition of private groups sued to block Youngkin’s removal program earlier this month. They argued that the silence period was introduced to ensure that legitimate voters were not removed from the electoral rolls due to bureaucratic or last-minute mistakes that could not be corrected in time.

Youngkin said he was simply following state law that requires Virginia to cancel the registration of non-citizens.

On Sunday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, sided with the judge who ordered voter registration to be restored.

The appeals court said Virginia was wrong to say it was forced to restore 1,600 foreigners to the voter rolls. The justices found that Virginia’s voter removal process provided no evidence that those removed from prison were actually foreigners.

Youngkin’s executive order, issued in August, required daily checks of Department of Motor Vehicles voter rolls to identify non-citizens.

State officials said any voter identified as a non-citizen was notified and given two weeks to contest his or her disqualification before being removed. If they return the form confirming their citizenship, their registration will not be canceled.

The plaintiffs said the program could result in a legitimate voter and citizen being invalidated simply by checking the wrong box on a DMV form. Plaintiffs presented evidence showing that at least some of the people removed were, in fact, citizens.

A similar lawsuit was filed in Alabama and a federal judge there last week the state ordered restoring eligibility to over 3,200 voters who were deemed ineligible foreigners. 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.

An appeal filed Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court by Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares asks the Supreme Court to intervene by Tuesday. Without any intervention, Giles’ order last week requires Virginia to notify voters and local officials by Wednesday of the restorations it orders.

In the filing, Miyares argues that requiring Virginia to restore the voter registration of people who have been identified as non-Virginians is a “violation of Virginia law and common sense.”

Virginia also argues that requiring these changes to be made less than a week before the presidential election is certain to cause confusion, “causing a massive influx of work for registrars in the critical week before the election and likely misleading noncitizens into believing they are eligible to vote.”

The Fourth Circuit’s opinion was written by Toby Heytens, a Biden appointee, and was joined by Chief Judge Albert Diaz and Judge Stephanie Thacker, both Obama appointees.

The panel emphasized, as Giles did in its original ruling, that the state has the right to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls, even during the 90-day election silence period, but must do so through an individualized process rather than a systematic data transfer process. from the DMV.

Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote.

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Barakat reported from Falls Church, Virginia.