Federal Judge Blocks Virginia Voter Purge Program
A federal judge ordered Virginia election officials to temporarily halt Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) voter purge program that targeted the registrations of naturalized citizens and other eligible Virginians on the eve of the Nov. 5 general election.
As a result of the ruling issued by Biden-appointed Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, Virginia counties must restore to the commonwealth’s voter rolls approximately 1,600 individuals whose registrations were canceled or marked as inactive. The ruling also instructs Virginia to notify everyone whose registration was removed under the program within the next five days.
Giles held a hearing on Thursday in a set of consolidated lawsuits from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and pro-voting groups alleging that Youngkin’s purge program violates the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The NVRA imposes a “quiet period” within 90 days of a federal election that prohibits the systematic removal of voters from state registration lists. But exactly 90 days prior to the Nov. 5 general election, Youngkin announced an executive order requiring Virginia’s elections commissioner to regularly remove individuals “identified as non-citizens” who haven’t responded to a request to verify their citizenship within 14 days.
Giles agreed with the plaintiffs that the challenged purge program is at odds with the NVRA’s 90-day quiet period and that it amounted to a systematic — as opposed to individualized — removal of voters.
The contested voter purge program further directed counties to refer individuals who were removed due to alleged noncitizenship to the Virginia attorney general’s office for criminal investigation and potential prosecution. Giles’ ruling puts a stop to these investigations through the upcoming election.
Both lawsuits took issue with the purge program’s flawed methodology for removing purportedly ineligible voters from the rolls, which relied on outdated and sometimes inaccurate Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) data to identify alleged noncitizens — many of whom are in fact naturalized.
As the DOJ and advocacy groups underscored, now-naturalized individuals who were ineligible to vote when obtaining their driver’s licenses at the DMV have since lawfully registered upon becoming U.S. citizens.
Although Giles’ preliminary ruling did not weigh in on whether the purge program is discriminatory, the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights said in its complaint that the “illegal…and error-ridden program…discriminates based on national origin and against naturalized citizens.”
The suit also noted that the purge program has erroneously removed at least some eligible voters who are U.S.-born citizens. In one instance, the voter registration of a lifelong U.S. citizen and decades-long Virginia resident was canceled since she had forgotten to check the citizenship box on her DMV paperwork.
The state defendants have already appealed the ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Youngkin took to X to declare that “Virginia is prepared to take this to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed!”
Earlier this month, a Trump-appointed judge preliminarily blocked the implementation of Alabama’s voter purge program at the request of the DOJ and nonprofit organizations. Alabama’s program similarly attempted to nullify the voter registrations of individuals flagged as noncitizens during the NVRA’s 90-day quiet period.