A federal judge on Friday slapped down efforts by Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin to purge non-citizens off their voter rolls ahead of Election Day.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles, appointed to serve on the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by President Joe Biden, ordered Virginia to restore roughly 1,600 voter registrants that she claims were unlawfully purged amid the state’s efforts to remove non-citizens from voter rolls, according to the court order. The court order marks the latest setback for GOP states attempting to remove non-citizens from voter rolls ahead of the November elections.
“Let’s be clear about what just happened: only eleven days before a Presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate over 1,500 individuals – who self-identified themselves as noncitizens – back onto the voter rolls,” Youngkin said in a press release. “Almost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities.”
“This is a Virginia law passed in 2006, signed by then-Governor Tim Kaine, that mandates certain procedures to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, with safeguards in place to affirm citizenship before removal – and the ultimate failsafe of same-day registration for U.S. citizens to cast a provisional ballot,” the governor continued. “This law has been applied in every Presidential election by Republicans and Democrats since enacted 18 years ago.”
Virginia GOP Attorney General Jason Miyares in August announced his office had identified and removed more than 6,000 noncitizens on voter rolls since he entered office. That same month, Youngkin issued an executive order codified election integrity throughout the state through a number of measures, such as tightening ballot security procedures, enhancing voter machine testing and voter-list maintenance that more thoroughly identifies and removes non-citizens on voter rolls
The governor’s order doubled down on election integrity efforts made earlier in his administration, such as an executive order in June that updated data-sharing agreements and streamlined the removal of dead voters from the rolls, according to Youngkin’s office.
However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Virginia on Oct. 12 over the executive order, accusing the Virginia State Board of Elections and Virginia Commissioner of Elections Susan Beals of violating the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from systematically removing registered voters within 90 before an election.
The decision on Friday marks the second time in October that a federal judge has struck down a GOP state’s attempt to purge non-citizens from voter rolls.
Alabama and the Alabama Secretary of State must cease efforts removing non-citizens from the state’s voter rolls ahead of the Nov. 5 election and also provide guidance to counties in the state to quickly restore many of the voters who have already been taken off, U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco of the Northern District of Alabama ruled on Oct. 16. Alabama was also sued by the DOJ for their election integrity efforts.
As for Friday’s decision pertaining to Virginia, Youngkin vowed to fight on.
“Virginia will immediately petition the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and, if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court, for an emergency stay of the injunction,” the Republican governor said.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Glenn Youngkin)
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