WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Republican officials in Virginia to renew a plan aimed at removing non-citizen 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 add 1,600 voters to the rolls.
The summary 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 integrity,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Young, a Republican who announced the plan in August, said in a statement.
“Virgins can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure and free of politically motivated interference,” he added.
Virginia has Single Day Voter RegistrationThis means that any eligible voter who has been removed from the roll can vote.
Civil rights groups, backed by the Biden administration, challenged the plan, saying it removed some legal voters from the rolls. The Justice Department said that while states can revise their voter rolls, they cannot do so before an election.
Under the National Voter Registration Act, states are barred from formally removing people from the electoral roll within 90 days of an election.
The state’s plan flagged people for removal if they declared a box on the Department of Motor Vehicles form that they were not a citizen or left it blank.
Groups that sued, including the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, said the process attracted people who may have indicated they were not citizens at the time but later became U.S. citizens. Both civil rights groups and the Biden administration provided evidence of the delisting of US citizens.
“To call this decision a disappointment would be an understatement,” said Ryan Snow, an attorney with the Lawyers Group for Civil Rights Under Law who represents the plaintiffs. “The Supreme Court ignored a key provision of the National Voter Registration Act and the plain fact that Virginia purged eligible voters before the election.”
In court documents, the groups said “the record makes clear that citizens are being removed from voter rolls.” They added that the 90-day period was “designed to protect” voters.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ordered it to halt its program and restore the voter registrations of more than 1,600 people that had been deleted in recent months.
The Virginia plan echoes broad, unproven Republican talking points extended by former President Donald Trump that voting by non-citizen voters is widespread.
If Trump loses on Election Day, this narrative could be used as a basis to challenge the election results.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican who has made a name for himself as an anti-immigration hardliner, filed a brief supporting Virginia, joined by 25 other Republican state attorneys general.
