Supreme Court's conservative justices allow Virginia to resume purge of voters from rolls

The Supreme Court's conservative majority on Wednesday allowed Virginia to resume its purge of voter registrations that the state says is aimed at stopping people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

The high court, over the dissents of the three liberal justices, granted an emergency appeal from Virginia's Republican administration led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The court provided no rationale for its action, which is typical in emergency appeals.

The justices acted on Virginia's appeal after a federal judge found that the state illegally purged more than 1,600 voter registrations in the past two months. A federal appeals court had previously allowed the judge's order to remain in effect.

Such voting is rare in American elections, but the specter of immigrants voting illegally has been a main part of the political messaging this year from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans.

Trump had criticized the earlier ruling, calling it “a totally unacceptable travesty” on social media. “Only U.S. Citizens should be allowed to vote,” Trump wrote.

The Justice Department and a coalition of private groups sued the state earlier in October, arguing that Virginia election officials, acting on an executive order issued in August by Youngkin were striking names from voter rolls in violation of federal election law.

The National Voter Registration Act requires a 90-day “quiet period” ahead of elections for the maintenance of voter rolls so that legitimate voters are not removed from the rolls by bureaucratic errors or last-minute mistakes that cannot be quickly corrected.

Youngkin issued his order on Aug. 7, the 90th day before the Nov. 5 election. It required daily checks of data from the state Department of Motor Vehicles against voter rolls to identify people who are not U.S. citizens.

Protect Democracy, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit, cited media interviews with voters as showing that the Youngkin administration’s purge has removed U.S. citizens from the voter rolls.

One example is Nadra Wilson, who lives in Lynchburg, Virginia, and told NPR she got swept up in the purge. “I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. I’m a citizen,” Wilson said, before showing her American passport as proof of her citizenship.

Another U.S. citizen and life-long Virginia resident, Shantae Martin, told NBC Washington, her voter registration had been canceled because she’s a "noncitizen."

“I was confused, to be honest. I was born and raised in Woodbridge, Virginia, so, you’ve got everything about me and now you’re saying that I’m an alien. Why would you let me vote before and not now?” Martin said.

Project Democracy said in a statement that “this program removes eligible voters. Virginia has not presented any evidence of noncitizens participating in elections. Because there is none. And it’s actually eligible VA voters that have been caught in the middle of this election-subversion scheme.”

People can still register to vote in Virginia's early-voting period or on Election Day, and cast provisional ballots, voting advocates said.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said elections officials still could remove names on an individualized basis, but not through a systematic purge.

Giles had ordered the state to notify affected voters and local registrars by Wednesday that the registrations have been restored.

Youngkin said the Supreme Court’s action was “a victory for commonsense and election fairness.”

“Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections,” he said in a written statement.

Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote.

In a similar lawsuit in Alabama, a federal judge this month ordered the state to restore eligibility for more than 3,200 voters who had been deemed ineligible noncitizens. Testimony from state officials in that case showed that roughly 2,000 of the 3,251 voters who were made inactive were actually legally registered citizens.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Virginia, Denise Lavoie in Richmond and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.