US supreme court rules Virginia can continue removing voters from rolls

Virginia does not have to restore the registrations of 1,600 voters, some of whom appear to have been wrongly removed, ahead of next week’s election, the US supreme court said on Wednesday.

The court made the decision on its emergency docket and did not give a rationale for its decision, which is customary for rulings on an expedited basis. All three liberal justices on the court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – said they would not have halted a lower-court ruling earlier in October ordering the state to restore the voter registrations.

The legal dispute centers on a 7 August executive order by the Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, directing the state to run its voter registration rolls against DMV data on a daily basis to check for non-citizens. The justice department and civil rights groups sued, saying that the state was violating a federal law that prohibits systematic removals of voters within 90 days of a federal election.

The US district judge Patricia Giles granted an injunction request last week to restore the voters.

Voting experts have long warned that comparing voting rolls with DMV data is not a reliable way to find non-citizens on the rolls because there may be paperwork errors and people can become naturalized after getting their driver’s license. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they had identified several people who were in fact citizens but had their registrations wrongly canceled.

“We know this program removes eligible voters,” said Protect Democracy, a non-profit that sued Virginia over the removals, in a statement. “Virginia has not presented any evidence of noncitizens participating in elections. Because there is none. And it’s actually eligible VA voters that have been caught in the middle of this election-subversion scheme.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said in a statement that they disagree with the supreme court’s order. “The Department brought this suit to ensure that every eligible American citizen can vote in our elections,” they wrote.

Kamala Harris’s campaign responded to the ruling in a statement.

“Every eligible voter has a right to cast their ballot and have their vote counted, and this ruling does not change that. Our campaign is going to make sure every eligible voter is able to vote,” the campaign said. “Voting by non-citizens remains illegal under federal law. We are confident this election will be free, fair, and secure, and we are confident that the voters will elect Kamala Harris.”

Donald Trump and allies had distorted the removals, saying that the lower court decision meant that non-citizens were going to be placed back on the voter rolls. But the state had not provided conclusive evidence that many of those removed were non-citizens.

The Virginia attorney general, Jason Miyares, a Republican, praised the supreme court’s action on Wednesday, saying it would “keep non-citizens off our voter rolls”.

Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s Republican governor, called the supreme court’s order a “victory for common sense and election fairness”.

“I am grateful for the work of Attorney General Jason Miyares on this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of US citizens,” he said in a statement. “Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections.”

The decision is the latest of rulings by the US supreme court in voting disputes that side with Republicans.

Virginia, which is predicted to vote for Harris this fall, provides same-day voter registration, allowing anyone who was wrongfully removed to re-register at the polls.