Biden’s Justice Department is fighting election integrity efforts, filing lawsuits across the country ahead of the election

The Biden administration’s Justice Department is suing states and cities across the country in an attempt to thwart election integrity measures ahead of the presidential election, prompting a backlash from election integrity advocates.

The Justice Department has sued Virginia, Alabama and rural Wisconsin towns over removing noncitizens from voter rolls and switching to only paper ballots and hand counting. Some jurisdictions are resisting, arguing that they are following the law by working to ensure election integrity.

The Justice Department sued Virginia earlier this month over its removal of non-citizens from its rolls ahead of the Nov. 5 election. AND federal judge in Virginia on Friday ordered the public to re-include non-citizens on the voter rolls. A judge ruled that removing registered voters from the rolls violated federal law, WRIC reported.

The lawsuit was filed against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the Virginia Board of Elections, and the Virginia Commissioner of Elections for allegedly violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The NVRA prevents states from using systematic programs to remove ineligible voters from their voter rolls within 90 days. According to the Department of Justice on federal elections.

While Virginia argued that foreigners removed from voter rolls were ineligible to vote, a judge ruled that they were illegally removed too close to the election.

“Let’s be clear about what just happened: Just eleven days before the presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate more than 1,500 people on the voter rolls who identified themselves as foreigners.” Virginia GOP Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a statement. “Nearly all of these individuals have previously provided immigration documentation confirming their alien status, which has recently been verified by federal authorities.”

“This is a Virginia law passed in 2006, signed by then-Governor Tim Kaine, that imposes certain procedures to remove non-citizens of the United States from voter rolls, with protections to prove citizenship against removal, and to ultimately secure same-day voter registration . US Citizens to Cast Provisional Ballots” Youngkin continued. “This law has been used in every presidential election by Republicans and Democrats since it was passed 18 years ago.

“Virginia will immediately file a motion with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and, if necessary, the United States Supreme Court for an emergency stay of enforcement of the order,” he added. he added.

Cleta Mitchell said after the court’s ruling Only News on Friday that the referee’s decision was wrong.

“The federal judge is one of Biden’s nominees, so we are not surprised by the ruling. This is an erroneous ruling and should be appealed,” Mitchell said.

“I fervently hope that the (Virginia) AG will file an urgent petition to the United States Supreme Court, bypassing the far-left 4th Circuit and resolving this issue as quickly as possible, not just for Virginia, but for ALL states, as the Department of Justice sent a letter to every state an election official tells them that states cannot remove anyone from the voter rolls, including noncitizens whose registration is invalid under state law and is invalid from the outset. That is why every state needs SCOTUS to consider and reverse the order issued today in Virginia,” she continued.

She added that the Biden administration is clearly targeting jurisdictions that are trying to implement election integrity measures. “The Biden-Harris Justice Department vigorously pursues states and localities that attempt to secure their elections and ensure that elections are not tainted or manipulated by illegal votes,” Mitchell said. “(It) shows that this administration really hates the idea of ​​election integrity.”

Virginia appealed the decision was handed down to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. The the court ruled against Virginia on Sunday in the Commonwealth’s call to exclude non-citizens from its electoral rolls.

Alabama and Wisconsin

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Alabama ruled against the state for trying to remove people who are not citizens of the country from the voter rolls, after The Department of Justice sued the state in September. The Justice Department’s argument was similar to Virginia’s regarding the timing of voter removal because Alabama announced its intentions 84 days before the election.

At the time of the announcement, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) said his office, using data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, had identified 3,251 people who could potentially vote without citizenship. He said it was possible that some people deemed noncitizens by DHS later became citizens, and he was assisting them in verifying their status.

The judge’s ruling this month’s case stated: “This year, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen (1) missed the deadline by announcing the start of his purge program eighty-four days before the 2024 general election, (2) later admitted that his purge list included thousands of citizens United States (except for the much smaller number of foreigners who are not eligible to vote), and (3) in any event referred all persons on the removal list to the Attorney General of the State of Alabama for criminal investigation.”

Allen’s office was in charge to provide county election officials with guidance on restoring voters to the state’s voter rolls, announce the court’s ruling on his office’s website, and notify the state attorney general that voters were wrongly targeted for investigation. Allen said will comply with the court order.

Department of Justice too sued two rural Wisconsin towns last month, after they switched from turning on electronic voting machines to using only paper ballots during elections and counting them by hand.

Biden The Department of Justice alleged that the cities and state violated Section 301 of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) by failing to have a voting machine accessible to voters with disabilities.

One city, Lawrence, population 301, settled in and signed a consent decree with the Justice Department last Friday. According to the consent resolution, the city board voted on September 6 to rescind its January 2023 decision not to include “under the voting machine.”

The city of Thornapple, in turn, defends its decision, saying it complies with the law by providing voters with disabilities with the actual assistance they need. According to the Department of Justice lawsuit, in June 2023, the Town of Thornapple Board of Supervisors voted to “end the use of an electronic voting device and use paper ballots.”

Thornapple previously used Dominion Voting Systems’ ImageCast Evolution machine to mark and count votes before deciding to maintain the paper ballot requirement. This year, the city used only paper ballots for both the April presidential primary and the August federal primary held at the only polling place in Thornapple.

Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin awarded the Department of Justice a preliminary injunction against Thornapple and the decision to use only paper ballots. Thornapple appealed the decision was handed down to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday.

The America First Politics Institute (AFPI) represents the Thornapple defendants in this case.

“Intimidation”

Michael Berry, executive director of the AFPI Litigation Center, he said Only News last month that the Justice Department should prioritize ongoing election integrity issues in major cities over paper elections.

“It is appalling that the Department of Justice is bullying and attacking a small town in rural Wisconsin over its decision to use hand-counted paper ballots.” Berry said. “I think the U.S. Department of Justice has much better things to do with its time and resources, including fixing rampant election integrity problems in many of our large cities. AFPI is proud to represent Thornapple, Wisconsin as it stands up to the Goliath that is the Department of Justice.”

As the Department of Justice sued both Virginia and Alabama, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior attorney at the Heritage Foundation who previously worked at the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice, wrote the report on Wednesday, explaining the department’s misinterpretation of the law regarding the removal of voter registrations.

“No provision of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), including the 90-day pre-election period set forth in s. 8 lit. (c)(2) does not prevent states from removing from state voter rolls aliens who illegally registered to vote.” wrote von Spakowski.

“The plain text of the statute does not require states to maintain on the register an individual who was never eligible to register in the first place, nor does any interpretation of the NVRA that would require states to maintain an alien registered to vote when both state and federal criminal statutes prohibiting aliens from registering would render the NVRA unconstitutional.”

“States have both the constitutional and statutory right – if not the obligation – to remove aliens who are ineligible to vote in both federal and state elections from their voter rolls,” he added. he added later.

“The 90-day deadline for systematic removal programs applies only to the removal of eligible registrants who have relocated. This does not apply to foreigners who were not entitled to registration at all, just as it does not apply to minors, fictitious registrations, false registrations of any kind, the deceased, criminals and mentally incapable persons. There is nothing against it in NVRA.”