Virginia Asks Supreme Court To Let It Remove Noncitizens From Voter Rolls

Virginia asked the Supreme Court Monday to block a lower court order to return over a thousand alleged noncitizens to the voter rolls.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares vowed to file the emergency appeal Sunday after an appeals court upheld a ruling preventing officials from removing roughly 1,600 individuals who the state says “self-identified” as noncitizens.

“The injunction, which prohibits the application of a law that has been on the books since the Justice Department precleared it in 2006, will also irreparably injure Virginia’s sovereignty, confuse her voters, overload her election machinery and administrators, and likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote, a criminal offence that will cancel the franchise of eligible voters,” the state argued in its petition.

U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Giles, a Biden appointee, issued an order Friday blocking Virginia’s efforts to remove noncitizen voters within 90 days of the election.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Virginia Oct. 12 over Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order to more frequently remove noncitizens.

“The Department of Justice pulled this shameful, politically motivated stunt 25 days before Election Day, challenging a Virginia process signed into law 18 years ago by a Democrat governor and approved by the Department of Justice in 2006,” Miyares said in a statement Friday.

“More concerning is the open practice by the Biden-Harris administration to weaponize the legal system against the enemies of so-called progress,” Miyares said. “That is the definition of lawfare. To openly choose weaponization over good process and lawfare over integrity isn’t democracy: it’s bullying, pure and simple, and I always stand up to bullies.”

A federal judge blocked Alabama’s efforts to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls earlier in October.