In Tuesday’s presidential election, while Vice President Kamala Harris lost to former President Donald Trump nationally, she defeated him in Virginia by about five points. But just days before, as thousands of Virginians prepared to cast their ballots, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Commonwealth to strike about 1,600 voter registrations in a program that targeted noncitizens but actually removed several U.S. citizens from the rolls. The Oct. 30 ruling came less than a week out from Election Day.
The voter purge program under scrutiny was first enacted by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and involved updating voter rolls daily by comparing them with data from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles to determine whether noncitizens were on the rolls. A coalition of immigrant rights groups and the League of Women Voters in Virginia filed a lawsuit challenging the program and alleging that the voter purge program is unlawful because it violates the National Voter Registration Act.
According to the plaintiffs, the data from the DMV is often inaccurate and out of date, and NPR and CNN both reported that the purge included multiple U.S. citizens. Locally, 16 voters were purged from Albemarle County, 11 in the city of Charlottesville and seven across surrounding counties, according to the Daily Progress.
While a federal judge in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered to halt the program until after Nov. 5, the controversial Supreme Court decision temporarily blocks that order.
Youngkin called for these removals Aug. 7 — right before the 90-day “quiet period” mandated by the NVRA. The NVRA’s quiet period prohibits states from systematically removing voter registrations within 90 days of a federal election. Virginia argues that their program is not systematic, but reviews status on an individual, case-by-case basis.
In addition to the NVRA, opponents to Youngkin’s program cited the Purcell Principle, a doctrine that says courts should not make last-minute changes to election procedure. However, Youngkin promoted Virginia’s same-day-registration for voters as a tool to safeguard against any inaccurate removals.
Kyle Kondik, managing editor of the University Center for Politics’ election forecast Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said he was surprised by the Court’s decision, and the decision seems aligned with now-President-Elect Trump’s concerns of voter fraud. Trump has falsely claimed that undocumented immigrants vote on a frequent basis — though multiple studies say otherwise.
“It's whether there are people on the voter rolls who should [not] be there, versus the danger of removing people from the voting rolls who should be there,” Kondik said. “It seems disruptive to me to do this so close to the election, when you might be removing people from the rolls who are, in fact, citizens.”
While he also questioned the Court’s reasoning, John Martin, research assistant professor of law and Karsh Center for Law and Democracy fellow, said he expected the ruling given the Court’s conservative majority and their typical hesitancy to interfere with state control close to an election. The decision split along ideological lines, with the three liberal judges noting they would have denied Virginia’s request to purge voters.
Martin said he was also unsurprised by the lack of explanation from the U.S. Supreme Court included in the half-page brief, which he said is typical of cases decided on the emergency docket that require an immediate decision.
“This is an important decision — we don’t even know why the Court decided the way it did,” Martin said. “And a lot of election experts are, quite frankly, a little baffled.”
Ultimately, the presidential race in Virginia was not close enough for the voter purge to have impacted the outcome, with Harris beating Trump by over 220,000 votes. Yet last-minute changes may have caused stress or confusion for voters, especially U.S. citizens who believed they were registered only to discover they were not any longer.
“You're talking about a fairly small amount of people,” Kondik said. “But obviously it's important to that small amount of people, particularly if there's someone who is eligible to vote and all of a sudden isn’t registered anymore.”
While the Supreme Court allowed the program to continue, their decision is not the final word on the matter — this case could return to the Court if appealed by the plaintiffs, but only after the election.
However, Martin said he doubts the decision will threaten the NVRA in the long run. Instead, he believes future policy improvements should focus on election administration, especially officials who manage voting on the state level. Election boards are often appointed by the governor or other party representatives, which he said can suggest partisan decision-making in a process that should run independently.
“We need to really rethink how we are choosing the people in charge of election administration, not only because of the real threat that the process can become influenced by partisanship … but also just the appearance of potential partisanship,” Martin said.
Beyond Virginia, election boards in other states have challenged conventional voting protocol this fall. Georgia’s board, led by three Trump-endorsed Republicans, entered seven new election rules that were ultimately struck down by a state judge because the rules were passed too close to the election. One rule would have required hand counting ballots after polling places close.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott also purged thousands of voters that the state identified as noncitizens, but a recent investigation by the Texas Tribune and ProPublica revealed that at least 10 U.S. citizens were purged.
In a trend of declining public trust in the democratic process, Martin sees Virginia’s purge as the latest blow.
“I think a lot of people are losing faith in these people that are supposed to be fulfilling the duty of upholding our democratic process,” Martin said. “I mean, you look at a decision like this just happened in Virginia, where they're removing 1,600 people in a questionable manner, and you lose a little bit of faith, right? From those people that should have the most faith, because we need to have faith in our democratic process.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia encourages voters to double-check status with their local registrar and use same-day registration as needed in future elections. Locals can call 866-OUR-VOTE for more help or information.
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