WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Wednesday, allowing Republican officials in Virginia to revive a plan aimed at removing noncitizen voters from the rolls ahead of next week’s election.
The justices blocked a federal judge’s ruling that halted the program and required the state to return 1,600 voters to the rolls.
The brief order noted that all three liberal justices on the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, dissented.
“This is a victory for common sense and electoral fairness,” said Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who announced the plan in August.
“Virginians can vote on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure and free from politically motivated interference,” he said.
There is Virginia same day voter registrationmeaning that any voter removed from the rolls should still be able to vote.
Civil rights groups backed by the Biden administration protested the plan, saying it would also remove some legal voters from the rolls. The Justice Department said that while states can review their voter rolls, they cannot do so before an election.
Under the National Voter Registration Act, states are prohibited from systematically removing people from voter rolls within 90 days of an election.
“Everyone agrees that states can and should remove ineligible voters, including noncitizens, from their voter rolls. The only question in this case is when and how they can do so,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in court documents filed by the Biden administration. .
The state’s plan called for removing people who checked or left blank a box on a Department of Motor Vehicles form that said they were not citizens.
Groups suing, including the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, said the process involved people who said they were not citizens at the time but later became U.S. citizens. Civil rights groups and the Biden administration presented evidence of US citizens who were eventually removed from the rolls.
In court documents, the groups said that “the record clearly shows that citizens have been removed from the voter rolls.” These are voters, the 90-day period is “designed to protect.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ordered the state to suspend the program and restore the voter registrations of more than 1,600 people who had been removed in recent months.
Virginia’s plan reflects broader, unproven Republican views promoted by former President Donald Trump about expanding noncitizen voting.
This narration can be used as a basis protesting election results If Trump loses on election day.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a hard-line anti-immigration Republican, briefly backed Virginia, who was joined by 25 other Republican state attorneys general.
Gary Grumbach contributed.