A divided Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for Virginia officials to remove about 1,600 voters from the state’s registration rolls less than one week before the presidential election.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) asked the justices to intervene after two lower courts blocked his efforts to cancel the registrations of voters who could be noncitizens — an issue Republican officials have seized on nationally to energize supporters even though noncitizen voting is extremely rare.
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Youngkin signed an order in August to expedite the removal of registered voters whose driver’s license applications indicated or suggested that they were not U.S. citizens. The effort was opposed by the Justice Department and immigrant rights groups, who said eligible voters were being kicked off the rolls because of outdated or erroneous information.
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As is typical in emergency situations, the Supreme Court’s brief order did not explain the majority’s reasoning. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — noted their dissent, saying they would have denied Youngkin’s request to allow the voter purge.
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In a statement on X, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares called the decision a “victory for commonsense and election fairness.”
The high court is increasingly being drawn into election-related disputes as voters begin casting ballots ahead of next week’s contest between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. Legal battles over voting rules are percolating largely in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada, and the justices are likely to get pulled into additional litigation in the coming days.
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In the Virginia case, the challengers sued state officials, saying they were making changes too close to the election and removing eligible voters in their efforts to remove noncitizens. Fully qualified voters who skipped or overlooked the question have been caught up in the purge, as have those who became citizens years after their first interaction with the Department of Motor Vehicles, the challengers said.
“Everyone agrees that States can and should remove ineligible voters, including noncitizens, from their voter rolls. The only question in this case is when and how they may do so,” Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, told the justices in court papers.
Across the country, Republicans have backed ballot measures in eight states to specify that only U.S. citizens are participating in elections, even though noncitizen voting is already restricted in all state and federal elections. Noncitizens are permitted to vote in school or municipal elections in 19 communities, including Washington, D.C.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ruled against Youngkin, saying a federal law known as the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from purging their voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election. Giles halted the program until the day after the Nov. 5 elections and directed the state to send letters to all 1,600 people purged from the rolls, instruct registrars to reinstate those people and publicize that the removal process has stopped.
“What I find is a clear violation of the 90-day quiet provision,” Giles said in court, referring to the federal law. “It is not happenstance that this executive order was announced on the 90th day.”
On Sunday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the decision, and Virginia asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Youngkin told the justices in a court filing that the forced restoration of voters would create confusion, overload election machinery and “likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote, a criminal offence that will cancel the franchise of eligible voters.”
Trump tweeted that Giles’s ruling was “crazy” and proof of a “truly Weaponized Department of ‘Injustice.’”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) asked the justices to intervene after two lower courts blocked his efforts to cancel the registrations of voters who could be noncitizens — an issue Republican officials have seized on nationally to energize supporters even though noncitizen voting is extremely rare.
Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.
Youngkin signed an order in August to expedite the removal of registered voters whose driver’s license applications indicated or suggested that they were not U.S. citizens. The effort was opposed by the Justice Department and immigrant rights groups, who said eligible voters were being kicked off the rolls because of outdated or erroneous information.
ADVERTISING
As is typical in emergency situations, the Supreme Court’s brief order did not explain the majority’s reasoning. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — noted their dissent, saying they would have denied Youngkin’s request to allow the voter purge.
Follow Election 2024
In a statement on X, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares called the decision a “victory for commonsense and election fairness.”
The high court is increasingly being drawn into election-related disputes as voters begin casting ballots ahead of next week’s contest between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. Legal battles over voting rules are percolating largely in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada, and the justices are likely to get pulled into additional litigation in the coming days.
End of carousel
In the Virginia case, the challengers sued state officials, saying they were making changes too close to the election and removing eligible voters in their efforts to remove noncitizens. Fully qualified voters who skipped or overlooked the question have been caught up in the purge, as have those who became citizens years after their first interaction with the Department of Motor Vehicles, the challengers said.
“Everyone agrees that States can and should remove ineligible voters, including noncitizens, from their voter rolls. The only question in this case is when and how they may do so,” Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, representing the Biden administration, told the justices in court papers.
Across the country, Republicans have backed ballot measures in eight states to specify that only U.S. citizens are participating in elections, even though noncitizen voting is already restricted in all state and federal elections. Noncitizens are permitted to vote in school or municipal elections in 19 communities, including Washington, D.C.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ruled against Youngkin, saying a federal law known as the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from purging their voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election. Giles halted the program until the day after the Nov. 5 elections and directed the state to send letters to all 1,600 people purged from the rolls, instruct registrars to reinstate those people and publicize that the removal process has stopped.
“What I find is a clear violation of the 90-day quiet provision,” Giles said in court, referring to the federal law. “It is not happenstance that this executive order was announced on the 90th day.”
On Sunday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld the decision, and Virginia asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Youngkin told the justices in a court filing that the forced restoration of voters would create confusion, overload election machinery and “likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote, a criminal offence that will cancel the franchise of eligible voters.”
Trump tweeted that Giles’s ruling was “crazy” and proof of a “truly Weaponized Department of ‘Injustice.’”
