Virginia requested the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday (October 28) to intervene and allow the state to remove about 1600 voters it believes are non-citizens from the voter rolls.
This request came after the Federal Appeals Court on Sunday unanimously upheld a federal judge’s order restoring the registration of these 1600 voters, stating that their registrations were unlawfully purged based on an executive order by the Republican governor of the state.
Governor Glenn Youngkin stated that his daily cleansing of the voter rolls was to prevent non-citizens from voting. However, Federal District Court Judge Patricia Giles ruled over the weekend that Youngkin’s purge plan was illegal under federal law, as it systematically removed voters within the 90-day “quiet period” before the November elections.
The Department of Justice and private organizations filed a lawsuit earlier this month to halt Youngkin’s purge plan. They argued that the purpose of the quiet period was to ensure that legitimate voters were not removed from voter lists due to bureaucratic errors or last-minute mistakes that couldn’t be promptly corrected.
Youngkin insisted that he was only following Virginia state law requiring the removal of non-citizen registrations.
Three judges from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Sunday to support Judge Giles’ demand for Virginia to restore the registrations of non-citizens.
The Appeals Court stated that Virginia’s claim of being compelled to restore the eligibility of 1600 non-citizen voters was incorrect. The judges believed that Virginia did not provide evidence that those being disenfranchised were indeed non-citizens.
Youngkin’s executive order issued in August required daily cross-referencing of voter rolls with data from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to identify non-citizens.
Officials mentioned that any voter identified as a non-citizen would receive a notice and have two weeks to challenge before being removed. If they submit paperwork proving their citizenship, their registration won’t be canceled.
Plaintiffs argued that due to the state government’s plan, legitimate voters and citizens could potentially have their registrations canceled simply because of marking the wrong option on a DMV form. Evidence provided by the plaintiffs indicated that at least some of those disenfranchised were indeed citizens.
Similar litigation also took place in Alabama. Last week, a federal judge in the state ordered the restoration of voting rights for over 3200 voters deemed non-citizens. Testimony from state officials revealed that out of the 3251 disenfranchised voters, around 2000 were actually registered citizens.
Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, seeking intervention before Tuesday. Without any intervention, the injunction issued by Giles last week mandates Virginia to notify affected voters and local registrars by Wednesday and restore voter registrations according to her order.
Miyares argued in his appeal that requiring Virginia to reinstate registrations of those identified as non-citizens is “contrary to Virginia law and common sense.”
Virginia also argued that requiring such changes less than a week before the presidential election would undoubtedly cause confusion, “overloading registrars with significant work in the critical final week before the election, and potentially leading non-citizens to believe they are eligible to vote.”
The opinion of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was written by Judge Toby Heytens appointed by Biden, with Chief Judge Albert Diaz and Judge Stephanie Thacker, both appointed by Obama, participating.
The panel emphasized, as Giles did in the initial ruling, that even during the 90-day quiet period, the state has the authority to remove non-citizens from the voter list, but it must be done through a personalized process rather than relying on the systematic process of DMV data transmission.
Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote.
(Information referenced from the Associated Press.)