BREAKING: Federal judge sides with Biden-Harris DOJ, requires Virginia to allow non-citizens to vote in presidential election

The Biden-Harris DOJ's suit against Virginia over the removal of non-citizens and other ineligible voters ahead of Election Day has resulted in courts forcing the state to put those names back on the voter rolls. A federal judge has required the state to stop it's lawful removal of non-citizen voters and to restore names that have been removed.

"Let’s be clear about what just happened: only eleven days before a Presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate over 1,500 individuals–who self-identified themselves as noncitizens–back onto the voter rolls," Youngkin said. "Almost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities."

Governor Glenn Youngkin has previously said that only those who have "self-identified" as non-citizens are removed from voter rolls. He said that he found the lawsuit to be a "very unreal moment," and that per Virginia's Constitution as well as state law, the process of removing non-citizens from voter rolls has been ongoing since 2006. That 2006 law was signed by then Governor Tim Kaine, who went on to be Hillary Clinton's 2020 running mate.

The DOJ claimed that the removal was against the National Voter Registration Act which bans removals of names from voter rolls within 90 days of an election. A spokesperson from Protect Democracy praised the judge for demanding that non-citizens be returned to the voting rolls, saying, "The judge ordered that purged voters be added back to the rolls and that the state must send corrective mailings to those voters."

In the event that those voters, who the state of Viriginia had already given three chances to make corrections to their own status, are non-citizens, the ruling would mean that a federal judge has required a state to allow non-citizens to vote in a United States presidential election, which is both against state and federal law.

The way the voters are removed, per Virginia law, is that the DMV, which registers voters automatically when they receive a driving license, sends a list of those who said they were not citizens to the state to make sure they are not included on voter rolls. Youngkin has questioned the DOJ's timing and intention in taking issue with the state preventing self-identified non-citizens from casting ballots.

"This is a Virginia law passed in 2006, signed by then-Governor Tim Kaine, that mandates certain procedures to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls, with safeguards in place to affirm citizenship before removal–and the ultimate failsafe of same-day registration for U.S. citizens to cast a provisional ballot. This law has been applied in every Presidential election by Republicans and Democrats since enacted 18 years ago," Youngkin said in a statement after the ruling.

"Virginia will immediately petition the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and, if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court, for an emergency stay of the injunction."