Virginia Asks U.S. Supreme Court To Reinstate Voter Purge Program

Virginia election officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to promptly reinstate Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) voter purge program. (Adobe Stock)

Virginia election officials have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to promptly reinstate Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) voter purge program that targeted the registrations of naturalized citizens and other eligible individuals ahead of the Nov. 5 general election. 

The request comes after a federal judge blocked the purge program last Friday, concluding it likely violates a provision of the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) — part of which prohibits states from systematically removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

Just yesterday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Virginia’s bid to pause Friday’s decision ordering election officials to restore to the voter rolls approximately 1,600 individuals whose registrations were canceled or marked as inactive. 

In a duo of lawsuits filed earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice and advocacy groups challenged Youngkin’s Aug. 7 executive order requiring Virginia’s elections commissioner to regularly remove individuals “identified as non-citizens” who haven’t responded to a request to verify their citizenship within 14 days.

Under the controversial program, those removed from the voter rolls due to alleged noncitizenship were referred to the Virginia attorney general’s office for criminal investigation and potential prosecution.

Both legal challenges raised concerns about the program’s flawed methodology, which involved removing purported noncitizens based on outdated and sometimes inaccurate citizenship data from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). 

Many now-naturalized individuals who were ineligible to vote when obtaining their driver’s licenses have since lawfully registered upon becoming U.S. citizens, but their DMV records don’t reflect such a change in citizenship status.  

The suits also highlighted instances of eligible U.S.-born voters being erroneously removed from the rolls. One such voter was Christine Rabassa — a lifelong U.S. citizen and decades-long Virginia resident — whose voter registration was canceled since she forgot to check the citizenship box on her DMV paperwork.

Meanwhile, Virginia claims in its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court that the 1,600 voters at issue in the suit “self-identified [as] noncitizens” and that the NVRA’s 90-day quiet period “does not apply to the removal of…noncitizens.” 

The commonwealth’s emergency request asked the justices to revive the purge program by Tuesday, Oct. 29.

Read the request to SCOTUS here.

Learn more about the case here.