Virginia appeals to Supreme Court to prevent Biden-Harris admin from forcing them to let non-citizens vote in presidential election

The decision by US District Judge Patricia Giles was maintained by a federal appeals court on Sunday so Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) and Attorney General Jason Miyares decided to shift the legal focus to the Supreme Court. Youngkin’s lawyers told the federal appeals court that the lower court’s injunction against Virginia taking non-citizens off of the voter rolls had no basis in law and would create electoral chaos before the election, Politico reported.

The three judges on the appeals court were unanimous in their rejection of Virginia using data from the state Department of Motor Vehicles to remove non-citizen voters during a 90-day “quiet period” prior to Election Day. They said it violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 and that Virginia authorities “remain able to prevent noncitizens from voting by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes.”

But in 2012 Florida’s federal district courts said the 90-day deadline in the NVRA means that a state cannot strike a voter from the rolls “based on a change in the residence of the registrant” but that that doesn’t prohibit it from removing non-citizens.

In an executive order from August, Youngkin told voting officials to cross-reference voter rolls with DMV data, and the 1,600 non-citizens flagged were stricken from the voter rolls. Youngkin posted on X Sunday that it is “common sense” that non-citizens shouldn’t be voting

Youngkin also noted last week that a 2006 state law signed by then-Gov. Tim Kaine (D-VA) “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 US 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 stated.

Youngkin has been fighting to maintain his state’s purge of non-citizens from the voter rolls after it was first challenged by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice and numerous private political action groups. The DOJ insisted that the 90-day “quiet period” exists so that legitimate voters aren’t also denied the right to vote because of some bureaucratic mistake

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been a strong defender of Youngkin’s insistence on election integrity and said so on X.