On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the Biden-Harris Justice Department to keep noncitizens on Virginia’s voter rolls.
In a one-page order, the nation’s highest court granted an emergency request by the commonwealth to place a stay on a lower court ruling that prohibited state election officials from removing roughly 1,600 “self-identified” noncitizens from Virginia’s voter registration lists. Decided by a Biden-appointed judge, the district court ruling was upheld by a three-judge panel of Democrat appointees on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday.
The Supreme Court’s granting of Virginia’s request seemingly fell along partisan lines, with all three Democrat justices voting to “deny the application.”
The dispute started in August, when Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order directing Virginia agencies to undertake voter list maintenance and other election security procedures ahead of the November election. In the order, the governor revealed the state had removed 6,303 noncitizens from the commonwealth’s voter rolls from January 2022 to July 2024.
The Biden-Harris DOJ filed a lawsuit against the state earlier this month, alleging that the Youngkin administration’s removal of noncitizens and other ineligible individuals from Virginia’s voter rolls this close to the general election violated federal law.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares appealed to the Supreme Court on Sunday, shortly after the 4th Circuit panel issued its decision. In his emergency application for stay, the commonwealth’s chief law enforcement officer argued that the Biden-appointed district court judge based her injunction on a provision within federal statute that “does not even apply to the removal of noncitizens and other voter registrations that are void ab initio,” and that “even if it did apply to the removal of noncitizens, Virginia’s program complied with it anyway.”
The Supreme Court noted in its order that the district court’s ruling is “stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.” The stay would be terminated if the Supreme Court ultimately declines to hear the case or agrees to consider the case and hands down judgement on the matter.
Youngkin celebrated Wednesday’s ruling in a post on X, calling it a “victory for commonsense and election fairness.”
“Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections,” the GOP governor wrote. “Virginians also know that we have paper ballots, counting machines not connected to the internet, a strong chain of custody process, signature verification, monitored and secured drop boxes, and a ‘triple check’ vote counting process to tabulate results. Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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