Supreme Court Reinstates Youngkin’s Voter Purge Order in Virginia

Virginia can cancel more than 1,600 voter registrations the state claims are held by noncitizens in advance of next week’s election, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The emergency decision marks a loss for the Biden administration, which convinced lower courts to reinstate the registrations because the removals took place too close to the election.

The court’s three liberals – Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — publicly dissented.

State officials claim the list comprises noncitizens, but a district judge found that some were eligible voters, and Virginia officials hadn’t shown the others “were, in fact, noncitizens.”

Though research indicates it is a rare occurrence, Republicans have drawn attention to noncitizen voting in a series of lawsuits this election cycle. Virginia was backed at the high court by all the nation’s 26 other Republican state attorneys general, the Republican National Committee and multiple conservative groups.

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Earlier this month, the Biden administration sued Virginia election officials over the 1,600 people removed from the state’s voter rolls. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) issued an executive order in August formalizing the program.

In a statement, Youngkin called the Supreme Court’s decision a “victory for commonsense and election fairness.”

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The Justice Department contended the cancellations violated the 90-day “quiet period” mandated under the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), during which states are prevented from enacting systematic voter purges in the lead-up to an election.

Virginia in its emergency application argued that the quiet period doesn’t apply to noncitizens.

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