Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order on Wednesday that aims to strengthen election security in the state, including the removal of noncitizens from voter rolls and establishing procedures to prosecute them.
Youngkin’s office issued Executive Order 35, which codifies election integrity in the state through a slate of measures, including tighter ballot security procedures, enhanced voter machine testing and voter-list maintenance that more thoroughly identifies and removes noncitizens on voter rolls. The order builds upon 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.
“The Virginia model for Election Security works,” Youngkin said Wednesday in a press release announcing the executive order. “This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s an American and Virginian issue.”
“Every legal vote deserves to be counted without being watered down by illegal votes or inaccurate machines. In Virginia, we don’t play games and our model for election security is working,” the governor continued.
There have been documented cases of noncitizens enrolling on voter lists, with the Virginia Attorney General on Wednesday announcing that his office has identified and removed more than 6,000 noncitizens on voter rolls since he entered office.
Youngkin’s order specifically targets noncitizen participation in elections by directing the Commissioner of the Department of Elections to certify in writing that individuals who were unable to verify their citizenship are to be removed from the statewide voter registration list. Before issuing a driver’s license, the Department of Motor Vehicles must also verify an applicant’s identity and legal status with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration database.
The executive order also outlines procedures for when a noncitizen attempts to register to vote, which includes notifying prosecutors when it happens and affirming that the Virginia Attorney General has the “full authority” to enforce the state’s election laws.
“We verify the legal presence and identity of voters using DMV data and other trusted data sources to update our voter rolls daily, not only adding new voters, but scrubbing the lists to remove those that should not be on it, like the deceased, individuals that have moved, and non-citizens that have accidentally or maliciously attempted to register,” Youngkin said of the order.
The governor’s order follows growing efforts by Republicans to ensure illegal migrants and other noncitizens are not allowed to participate in federal elections, while many Democrats have argued that this is a made-up controversy.
President Joe Biden in July referred to claims of noncitizen participation in elections as “easily disproven falsehoods” in a public statement opposing a House GOP bill that aims to strengthen election integrity.
In a related case across the U.S., America First Legal sued Maricopa County, Arizona, on Tuesday for allegedly failing to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls, with the group claiming earlier this year that there were more than 35,000 registered voters in Arizona who have not provided proof of citizenship.
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