A top civil rights lawyer is sounding the alarm on a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which he says could pave the way for a voter suppression system less than a week from election day.
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the nonpartisan Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was referring tot the high court's blocking of a judge's order to reinstate some 1,600 individuals removed from Virginia's registered voter roll.
Immigration and civil rights groups, as well as the Justice Department challenged the decision by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, claiming it violated the 90-day quiet period mandated by the 1993 National Voting Rights Act (NVRA).
Youngkin celebrated the development, describing it as a win in the "critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens." "Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections," he added.
Hewitt, in contrast, criticized it, saying "they're trying to really test the bounds of the court's state and federal courts appetite for actually enforcing the NVRA."
The case is part of a broader initiative by Republican-led states to purge voter rolls as they search for noncitizen voting, citing it as a major concern that could affect the election's outcome. Experts and analysts have highlighted that such cases are extremely rare and represent a minimal fraction of the rolls.
For example, Georgia's Secretary of State revealed last week that 20 noncitizens registered to vote after a review of millions of registered voters. Authorities also opened case files on another 156 individuals whose citizenship status requires additional investigation. The 20 noncitizens were removed from the state's voter rolls, which include over 8 million eligible voters.
NAACP Senior Associate General Counsel Anthony P. Ashton said in an interview with ABC News that the efforts have been "expressed now for a later narrative to try to undermine democracy, undermine faith in the democratic process." Organization president Derrick Johnson added that "voter purges here are textbook examples of attempted voter suppression and intimidation."
"Those behind the false allegations that saturate the commonwealth's case seek to frighten those they consider their constituents by sounding xenophobic and racist dog whistles." The outlet also quoted civil rights leaders who claim that voters of color, especially black voters, are more likely to become targets of such challenges, which have mostly taken place in the battleground states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
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