Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Virginia Takes Noncitizen-Voting Case to Supreme Court Ahead of Election; Virginia Asks Supreme Court to Allow Voter Rolls Purge Before Election; 26 Republican Attorneys General Join Virginia in Petitioning Supreme Court to Rule On Voter Roll

Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Virginia Takes Noncitizen-Voting Case to Supreme Court ahead of Election:
Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares on Monday took the commonwealth’s noncitizen-voter case to the Supreme Court after a lower court blocked officials from purging their voter rolls of noncitizen aliens.
A federal appeals court on Sunday backed a lower court’s Friday ruling that ordered Virginia to restore some 1,600 suspected noncitizens who are ineligible to vote to the state’s voter rolls. Miyares and Governor Glenn Youngkin, both Republicans, responded with a pledge to take the case to the Supreme Court with just nine days left before the election. They followed through on Monday.
The request asks the Supreme Court to pause the appeals court’s Sunday decision. “Not only will the Commonwealth of Virginia be irreparably harmed absent a stay, so will its voters and the public at large,” Virginia wrote in its emergency application for staying the injunction.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously upheld a Biden-appointed federal district’s judge’s decision, which found that Virginia’s purging of aliens from the rolls came too close to the November election and therefore violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The appeals court agreed that the voter-purge program is a “systematic” removal, rejecting the state’s request to block the order.
By noting the state can still “prevent noncitizens from voting by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes,” the latest ruling says Virginia’s claims for an immediate appeal are weak. Virginia officials argued that removing noncitizens isn’t covered under federal law. --->READ MORE HERE
Katie Barlow
Virginia asks Supreme Court to allow voter rolls purge before election:
Virginia election officials on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block a ruling by a federal judge that would bar them from reviving a program put in place in August by the state’s Republican governor intended to remove suspected noncitizens from the state’s voting rolls.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles on Friday ordered the state to restore the registration of more than 1600 people whom it had taken off the rolls as part of the program, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on Sunday turned down the state’s request to step in.
In an executive order on Aug. 7, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered state election officials to expedite the use of data from the state’s department of motor vehicles to identify and cancel the voter registration of suspected noncitizens unless they could verify their citizenship within 14 days.
A federal court found that that the database flagged and canceled the registration of at least some eligible citizens and that those voters were unaware of the fact that they were no longer able to vote.
The Biden administration, along with civic and immigrant rights groups, went to federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Oct. 11 to challenge the voter-purge program. They argued that it violated the National Voter Registration Act, a 1993 law that generally bars states from “systematically” removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election.
In an order on Oct. 25, Giles barred the state from “continuing any systematic program intended to remove the names of ineligible voters from registration lists less than 90 days before the November 5, 2024, federal General Election,” although she left open the possibility that the state could still remove some voters on a case-by-case basis – for example, those with criminal convictions and those who have died. She also ordered the state to restore the registration of voters whom it had removed from the rolls as part of the program.
The state went to the 4th Circuit, asking it to put Giles’ order on hold. But a three-judge panel made up of two Obama appointees and one Biden appointee denied (as relevant here) that request on Sunday, writing that it was “unpersuaded” that Virginia’s program complied with the NVRA. --->READ MORE HERE
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+++++26 Republican attorneys general join Virginia in petitioning Supreme Court to rule on voter roll+++++

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