Supreme Court allows Virginia to resume purging voter rolls

Studies have found a minuscule number of suspicious foreigners voting, but Republicans this year have made the removal of suspected foreigners a central focus of their voter integrity lawsuits.

WASHINGTON – On Wednesday, the Supreme Court allowed Virginia to reinstate a purges of suspected foreigners from voter lists.

Despite dissent from three liberal justices, the court granted state officials’ emergency request to intervene after lower courts halted a state program that has removed more than 1,600 names since Aug. 7.

Most did not provide a reason for their decision, which is common with emergency orders.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Republican, he called the order “a victory for common sense and electoral integrity.”

Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the Campaign Legal Center, which represented advocacy groups in the lawsuit, called it “outrageous” to allow a “last-minute purge involving many high-profile eligible citizens.”

“But the elections will be decided by voters, not the courts,” he added. Lang said. “Eligible Virginia voters should know that regardless of this purge, they can register to vote on Election Day and cast their ballots.”

Voting rights groups fought the state’s policy because it removed from the registries naturalized citizens who had previously declared themselves aliens on motor vehicle forms. Youngkin’s program notified suspected foreigners that they would be removed if they did not confirm their citizenship within 14 days.

But because years could have passed since the motor vehicle declarations, advocacy groups and the Department of Justice challenged the program in court, arguing that naturalized citizens were being removed from the voter rolls.

Advocacy groups quoted Prince William County Clerk Eric Olsen as saying at a Sept. 30 board of elections meeting that his office checked 162 people listed in the state computer system as noncitizens and found that 43 had voted early. However, his office checked and found that all 43 people had confirmed their citizenship – some up to five times – but were still removed from the voter rolls.

A Trump supporter who was removed from the electoral rolls he told Cardinal News suspects he forgot to check his citizenship status on the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles form renewing his driver’s license.

Another voter who showed on NPR passport, stated she did not know why the DMV incorrectly registered her as a foreigner.

In addition to blocking further purges, U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ordered the state to restore registrations canceled since Aug. 7 because federal law prohibits voter purges within 90 days of an election, when voters may not have enough time to correct mistakes. A federal appeals court upheld this decision.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, however, told the Supreme Court that the federal “quiet period” provision does not apply to removing non-U.S. citizens from voter rolls because they should never have been on the voter rolls.

Miyares said that even if a citizen is mistakenly removed from the rolls, he or she can re-register to vote and cast a provisional ballot.

The Justice Department argued that Virginia could still investigate specific people — including any of the 1,600 — it said were foreign nationals, but could not pursue a broad expulsion method so close to the election.

“Everyone agrees that states can and should remove ineligible voters, including noncitizens, from their voter rolls,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the Supreme Court. “The only question in this case is when and how they can do it.”

Research has found a negligible number of suspected foreigners who vote, likely due to the threat of criminal charges and deportation if caught. Research according to Brennan Center for Justice and libertarian Cato Institute they discovered that the foreign vote was basically non-existent.

But this year, Republicans have made the removal of suspected foreigners a central focus of their voter integrity lawsuits.