Judges allow Virginia voter registration to be cleared | News, sports, work

Supreme Court in June in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday left in place Virginia’s voter registration purge that the state says is intended to keep non-U.S. citizens from voting.

A Virginia woman whose registration was canceled despite living in the state all her life has called for a purge “a very bad October surprise.”

The Supreme Court, over the dissent of three liberal justices, granted an emergency appeal filed by 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.

The specter of undocumented immigrants voting has been a central part of former President Donald Trump and other Republicans’ political messaging this year, even though such voting is considered rare in U.S. elections.

Trump criticized the earlier ruling, calling it “a completely unacceptable parody” on social media. “Only U.S. citizens should be able to vote.” Trump wrote.

Youngkin said voters who believe they were wrongly removed from the voter rolls can still vote in the election because Virginia has same-day registration. “So there is a final safeguard in Virginia, no one is excluded from voting, so I encourage every citizen to vote.” Youngkin told reporters.

The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for the White House, also considered this option.

“Everyone eligible to vote has the right to cast their vote and have it counted, and this ruling does not change that,” he added. – campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak said in a statement. “Our campaign will ensure that everyone eligible to vote will be able to vote. Voting by non-citizens remains illegal under federal law.”

Rina Shaw, 22, of Chesterfield, Virginia, said she was born in Virginia, has lived in the state her entire life and has never left the United States.

Shaw believes she may have forgotten to check the citizenship box on the form when she updated her voter registration with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles while obtaining her learner’s permit.

“My first reaction was that it was just ridiculous and shouldn’t be allowed in October, of all months. This should take place six months before the elections, not just before them,” he added. Shaw said.

She planned to vote during early voting on Wednesday and said she still found the error troubling. Shaw said her voter registration has been restored.

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

The National Voter Registration Act requires 90 days “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 errors that cannot be quickly corrected.

Youngkin issued his order on August 7, the 90th day before the November 5 elections. This required daily checking of data from the state Department of Motor Vehicles against voter rolls to identify non-U.S. citizens.

Protect Democracy, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, cited media interviews with other voters as showing that the Youngkin administration’s purge removed U.S. citizens from the voter rolls.

One example is Nadra Wilson, who lives in Lynchburg, Virginia, and told NPR that she was caught up in the purge.

“I was born in Brooklyn, New York. “I am a citizen” Wilson said before showing her US passport as proof of citizenship.

The Democracy Project said in a statement that “this program removes eligible voters. Virginia presented no evidence of non-citizen participation in the election. Because there isn’t any. And it was actually eligible VA voters who were caught in the middle of this election subversion scheme.”

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said election officials could still remove names individually, but not through a systematic purge.

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

In Virginia, the deadline to register to vote was October 15, but starting in 2022, the state allows same-day registration, which allows you to register to vote in person and immediately submit a provisional ballot after the registration deadline. The state Department of Elections does not remove names from voter rolls after the Oct. 15 deadline unless they are the names of deceased persons.

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.

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Lavoie reported from Richmond. Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Virginia, and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.