Voting Rights Case to Ensure Rolls Aren’t Purged Too Close to Election Day to Move Forward

A federal district court judge rejected defendants’ attempts to dismiss a voting rights case that first surfaced last summer when Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered a purge of voter rolls that the U.S. Department of Justice, Democratic Virginia lawmakers and civil rights advocates said was too close to Election Day.

Over 1,600 people removed from voter rolls under Youngkin order; groups seek court injunction

In what its plaintiffs are calling a “major win for voting rights,” U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia judge Patricia Tolliver Giles is allowing the case to proceed and move into the next phase of legal scrutiny.

Filed by the Virginia Coalition for Immigrants’ Rights (VACIR), Virginia’s chapter of the League of Women Voters, and African Communities Together, the groups assert that Youngkin’s administration violated the federal National Voter Registration Act by removing people from voter rolls within 90 days of last November’s elections.

The federal law entails a 90-day “quiet period” that both former President Joe Biden’s administration and the Virginia groups’ suits alleged Youngkin violated.

Voter purge lawsuits add to disenfranchisement allegations against Youngkin administration

Youngkin had issued an executive order on Aug. 7, 2024 — exactly 90 days before the 2024 elections — before touting it  on Fox News that same day.

A 2006 law does allow removals from rolls if people fail to indicate U.S. citizenship on Department of Motor Vehicle paperwork. The information is then sent to the State Board of Elections monthly. Youngkin’s order ramped the process up to daily, which raised concern about eligible voters being inadvertently removed, along with its occurrence within the 90-day “quiet period.”

Purged Virginia voters say experience has been ‘worrying’

In the Aug. 7, 2024  interview with Sean Hannity, Youngkin said the “daily scrubbing” of voter rolls was necessary to “make sure that in fact if an illegal immigrant either mistakenly or maliciously registers to vote, that person will be cleaned off the ballot immediately and turned over to our prosecuting attorneys to make sure that they are prosecuted to the full extent.”

Election officials said at the time that there was already a process in place to prevent undocumented immigrants from voting. The coalition’s suit argued that many removals were done without proper notification or investigation, leaving eligible voters unaware they could no longer cast their ballots. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit stressed that purges affect both longtime citizens who’d made paperwork errors and those who’d become naturalized citizens since their last Department of Motor Vehicles visits. Roughly 1,600 Virginians were affected, some of whom were able to get back on the rolls, but it was a challenge for them.

“An attack on naturalized citizens is an attack on citizens,” VACIR director Monica Sarmiento said on a press call Wednesday celebrating the advancement of the case.

Though the case sought an injunction last year,  the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the purge to take place. In the new U.S. District court ruling, the case can move forward again.

“Now we will have the opportunity to depose officials who were involved, seek additional information, find out who is responsible, and make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Anna Dorman, legal counsel with Protect Democracy, which was also involved in the case.

Beyond the lawsuit, state lawmakers tried to adjust the 2006 state law to further clarify federal law’s 90-day threshold. It cleared the legislature but was ultimately vetoed by Youngkin.

If the lawsuit prevails, plaintiffs said their goal is to prevent voters from being negatively affected when they seek to vote in next year’s congressional midterm elections.

by Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury

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