Virginia can resume its removal of 1,600 suspected noncitizens from its voter rolls, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, temporarily halting a lower court decision that blocked the purge.
The High Court’s decision came after a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate the 1,600 voters on Friday, less than two weeks before the election. The lower court, granting the Department of Justice’s request for an injunction, ordered Virginia election officials to stop a process of cross-checking Department of Motor Vehicles data against voter registration lists to validate voters’ citizenship status.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R.) celebrated the Wednesday ruling, saying it was a win for “commonsense” and election integrity.
“This is a victory for commonsense and election fairness,” the governor said in an X post. “Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference.”
Youngkin announced on Aug. 7 that election officials had removed 6,303 noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls since January 2022. The DOJ then sued the state earlier this month for removing some of those voters “too close to the Nov. 5 general election,” which it said violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
Youngkin and his attorney general, Jason Miyares, appealed the lower court’s ruling, arguing that the individuals who were removed “self-identified themselves as noncitizens.”
Over the weekend, three Fourth Circuit judges, two Obama appointees and one Biden appointee, affirmed the lower court’s ruling, saying the Virginia leaders’ argument was “weak” because the state had not independently confirmed the individuals purged from the voter roll were “noncitizens.”
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on an emergency appeal from Virginia’s Republican administration pauses the Friday ruling pending additional litigation in the appeals court.
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