 Voter Rolls in the Courts
A federal judge in Alexandria issued an injunction ordering Virginia to stop removing names from voter rolls and to reinstate some 1,600 voters the state had removed in recent weeks.
On Sunday, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit refused to lift the injunction, writing that Commonwealth officials “remain able to prevent noncitizens from voting by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes.”
Gov. Glenn Youngkin had said he would appeal the injunction to the Supreme Court if necessary. Youngkin said the issue in the case is that “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.”
Over the summer, Youngkin issued an executive order requiring daily reviews of DMV information to identify and remove people who identified themselves as non-citizens.
That action led to two lawsuits filed this month, one by the federal Department of Justice, that claim that the Commonwealth’s voter list clean-up policy violates a federal 90-day “quiet period” that blocks states from systematically removing voters in the months before an election.
Almost 6 million Virginians are registered to vote this year.
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