Virginia begged the Supreme Court on Monday to step in and allow the state to carry out its removal of 1,600 names of suspected noncitizens from its voting rolls.
Lower courts have ruled that Virginia’s attempt to purge the names violates a 1993 federal law that bars systematic voter-roll cleaning in the 90 days before a federal election — what’s known as the “quiet period.”
But state Attorney General Jason Miyares says that law applied to eligible voters, not to ineligible people such as those lacking citizenship.
He said the lower court judges were wrong to order the names be added back onto the rolls just days before the election. He asked the justices to step in and stay the lower court rulings.
“Not only will the Commonwealth of Virginia be irreparably harmed absent a stay, so will its voters and the public at large. The injunction requires Virginia to restore over 1,600 self-identified noncitizens to Virginia’s voter rolls,” Mr. Miyares, a Republican, argued in his petition to the high court.
The names were removed in response to an August executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who directed elections officials to do a daily scouring of their rolls to try to spot names that don’t belong.
In the ensuing weeks, officials identified more than 1,600 names and removed them.
The Department of Justice and voting rights groups who challenged the state say Virginia made some mistakes in erasing the names of at least three actual citizens.
And the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of the challengers on Sunday, said Virginia can’t know for certain that the names it erased “were in fact noncitizens.”
Mr. Miyares, though, said the state took pains to make sure its list was accurate.
It relied on Department of Homeland Security records to flag more than 1,000 of the names. The others have identified themselves as noncitizens at some point on a state application, such as for a driver’s license.
Those whose names were removed were also sent notices giving them a chance to prove their eligibility.
“The vast majority of the 1,600 self-identified noncitizens that Virginia is required to place on the voter rolls are in fact noncitizens who cannot vote without committing a felony,” Mr. Miyares told the justices.
He said any valid voters who were removed can still vote by provisional ballot.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. gave Virginia’s opponents until Tuesday afternoon to respond to the petition.
The case is Susan Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights. Ms. Beals is Virginia’s elections commissioner.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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