The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Virginia to proceed with the removal. voter registrationtargeted at non-UD nationals. The decision came after Virginia filed an emergency appeal under a Republican governor, despite the dissent of three liberal justices. Glenn Youngkinadministration.
The conservative-led Supreme Court offered no explanation for its decision, according to the Associated Press.
The lawsuit overturns a federal judge’s previous finding that Virginia wrongfully removed the voter registrations of more than 1,600 people within two months. A federal appeals court had previously upheld this finding.
Voting by non-citizens is rare in the United States, but electionthe issue has been at the center of Republican political debate, especially from former President Donald. playing cards and his allies.
President Trump expressed his disapproval of the earlier ruling on social media, saying, “Only American citizens should be allowed to vote,” calling it “a completely unacceptable travesty.”
of Ministry of Justice Various private groups then filed a lawsuit against the state of Virginia in October. They argued that state election officials were following Yonkin’s August executive order and removing names from voter lists in violation of federal election law.
Federal law requires a 90-day downtime before elections for voter roll maintenance to protect legitimate voters from administrative errors that are difficult to correct quickly.
Yonkin issued the directive on Aug. 7, just 90 days before the election, requiring that DMV data and voter rolls be cross-referenced and identified daily. non-citizen.
Judge Patricia Giles ruled that individual removals were permissible, but systemic purges were not. Evidence showed that some of the removed registrations belonged to U.S. citizens.
The judge ordered the state to notify affected voters and local registrars by Wednesday about reopening registration.
Yonkin praised the Supreme Court’s decision upholding election integrity, but Daniel Lang of the Election Legal Center criticized the decision as problematic for eligible citizens.
There are currently approximately 6 million registered voters in Virginia. In a similar case in Alabama, a federal judge ordered the reinstatement of more than 3,200 voters previously classified as noncitizens. Testimony from state officials revealed that about 2,000 of those voters were actually legal citizens.
