The Supreme Court has paved the way for Virginia to cancel voter registrations for hundreds of people less than a week before Election Day.
The justices voted on Wednesday to overturn federal court decisions that blocked a mass voter purge under Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who directed the state’s election officials to review whether noncitizens are illegally registered to vote.
But the Department of Justice and private plaintiffs who sued the state have argued that voting-eligible citizens also got wrapped up in the purge, which the governor directed during what is supposed to be a “quiet period” for voter registration policies before an election, when there is not enough time for voters to contest and correct any errors.
The Supreme Court’s ruling — which the court’s three liberal justices dissented to — could mean that anyone who was mistakenly blocked from voting will be disenfranchised this year. Virginia still has same-day voter registration, so people who believe they were wrongfully removed from voter rolls can still cast a ballot.
Youngkin called the decision a “victory for commonsense and election fairness.”
“Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference,” he said in a statement.
Thousands of people across the country have been targeted for removal from state voter databases for allegedly registering as a noncitizen, as part of what civil rights groups fear is a concerted mass disenfranchisement effort that dovetails with Republicans’ anti-immigrant agendas.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit in Virginia similarly argues the state has “likely confused, deterred, and removed US citizens who are fully eligible to vote.”
Right-wing media routinely airs myths about widespread “noncitizen” voting, claims that have been amplified by Donald Trump, Elon Musk, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republican state officials across the US — dovetailing with rhetoric around immigration and the US-Mexico border.
Democratic rivals and voting rights advocates fear Republican campaigns are once again setting the stage for challenges to election results by relying on the courts and the court of public opinion to build a spurious body of evidence to undermine the outcome.
But federal judges in Michigan and Alabama have blocked similar attempts to perform mass voter purges.
In Virginia, Youngkin’s purge targeted voters who checked a box on a Department of Motor Vehicles form declaring they are not a citizen, or if they left that part blank.
The Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and other groups that sued that state said the purge likely included people who may not have been citizens at the time but have since gained citizenship.
Court documents included evidence of US citizens whose registrations were wrongfully targeted.
“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 may do so,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in court papers in the Virginia case on behalf of President Joe Biden administration.
