Appeals court keeps Virginia voter purge program blocked, setting up Supreme Court fight
CNN
A federal appeals court refused to reinstate a Virginia purge program aimed at culling suspected non-citizens from the voter rolls, leaving in place a lower court ruling that found that the program likely violated a federal prohibition on “systematic” removals in the 90 days before an election.
A federal appeals court refused to reinstate a Virginia purge program aimed at culling suspected noncitizens from the voter rolls, leaving in place a lower court ruling that found the program likely violated a federal prohibition on “systematic” removals in the 90 days before an election. The Sunday decision by the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals sets up a Supreme Court fight over the purge program with early voting already underway in Virginia. Republicans all the way up to former President Donald Trump have seized on the case — a consolidation of lawsuits brought by the Biden administration and private groups — as they have pushed the narrative that voting by noncitizens poses a major threat to the election. It is in fact a very rare occurrence. The new order from the 4th Circuit noted that Virginia officials are still allowed to prevent noncitizen voting “by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes.” US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Biden appointee, on Friday halted the program and ordered election officials to restore the registrations of the roughly 1,600 people who had been removed under the program during the so-called 90-day quiet period. Six hundred of those individuals were removed because they checked a box during a Department of Motor Vehicles interaction declaring them noncitizen and the other 1,000 were removed because of records in government databases that indicated noncitizenship. Former President Donald Trump railed against the Friday ruling on Truth Social, claiming that a “Weaponized Department of ‘Injustice,’ and a Judge (appointed by Joe), have ORDERED the Great Commonwealth of Virginia to PUT NON-CITIZEN VOTERS BACK ON THE ROLLS.” State officials immediately appealed the ruling to the 4th Circuit, and Trump, in his Truth Social post, said the “U.S. Supreme Court will hopefully fix it!”
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