OPINION:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday stepped in to prevent a group of known illegal aliens from voting next Tuesday. The commonwealth of Virginia filed an emergency appeal after being chastised by a federal judge for taking the names of 1,600 self-identified illegal aliens off the list of registered voters. The case is now on hold and will be resolved after the election.
“It should never be illegal to remove an illegal voter,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a statement after the lower court’s ruling. “Yet, today a court — urged by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice — ordered Virginia to put the names of non-citizens back on the voter rolls, mere days before a presidential election.”
DOJ had teamed up with liberal activist groups to stop the Old Dominion from preventing people who shouldn’t vote from casting a ballot. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin put rules in place to minimize the potential for mistakes. The only people who were removed provided residency documents to the Department of Motor Vehicles establishing their status as noncitizens.
Officials double-checked these names against a federal database, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, confirming they had not recently become naturalized citizens. Those affected were also given notice and 21 days to correct any errors. Everything was done in accordance with state laws that have been on the books since 2006.
That wasn’t good enough for U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles. She sided with Biden-Harris administration lawyers in insisting illegal aliens must stay on the rolls because no names may be removed within 90 days of an election, unless they personally ask to be removed.
Not only did she order the restoration of ineligible voters, the judge, appointed by President Biden, also commanded the Virginia Department of Elections to send each noncitizen a note explaining that “the registrant may cast a regular ballot on Election Day in the same manner as other eligible voters.”
In addition, the state must provide training to every poll worker in Virginia’s 95 county and municipal jurisdictions about how these illegal aliens are to be allowed “to cast a regular ballot without submitting supplemental paperwork or documentation.” She gave the state five days to comply — even though election officials are occupied with early voting.
Other jurisdictions have come up with equally baffling rulings. In Pennsylvania, a federal judge rejected a challenge brought by Republican legislators to block foreigners living abroad from voting in next week’s contest. A day before that, Nevada’s Supreme Court said purported mail-in ballots that have no postmark could be counted up to three days after Election Day.
It’s no wonder skepticism over the validity of elections has been on the rise. The GOP candidate, former President Donald Trump, says there’s only one reason this is happening: “They want to cheat.”
His solution is straightforward. “Republicans must win, we want a landslide. We have to win so it’s too big to rig,” he said at a rally in March.
Any long-term fix must include overhauling the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. This statute contains language activist judges contort to enfranchise noncitizens and encourage other electoral shenanigans. A significant majority of the public favors adoption of voter identification laws, so there’s no reason not to do so.
Congress is the ultimate authority in federal elections. It needs to step up and do its job so that half the country doesn’t end up doubting the Election Day outcome.
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