A federal appeals court ruled Sunday that a lower court did the right thing by reinstating about 1,600 Virginia voters who have questionable citizenship status to the rolls.
The ruling came after immigrants and women’s rights groups sued the state and its Board of Elections after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order in August directing state officials to identify noncitizens. , who were given two weeks to challenge their disqualification before being removed from the voting list. rolls.
Youngkin’s attorneys argued that the law applies to actual voters and that expulsion of noncitizens is not covered. The Fourth Circuit appeals court said the state was conflating several parts of the law.
YOUNGKIN VOWS TO APPEAL ‘TO SCOTUS’ AFTER US JUDGE ORDERS 1,600 VOTERS RETURN TO BALLOT
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin speaks during the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Path to Majority Policy Conference at the Washington Hilton on June 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
“This is not how courts interpret statutes,” the appeals court said in its ruling.
On Sunday he vowed to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It’s common sense: non-citizens should not be on our voter lists,” he wrote in X.
“Thank you @JasonMiyaresVA “For immediately filing with the United States Supreme Court an emergency appeal of Virginia’s order to return to the voter rolls more than 1,500 people who identified themselves as noncitizens,” the governor told the Virginia Attorney General , Jason Miyares.
On Friday, U.S. Judge Patricia Giles issued a preliminary injunction to reinstate all voters who had been removed from state voter rolls in the past 90 days. The judge determined that the expulsions had been “systematic,” not individualized, and therefore constituted a violation of federal law.
His ruling came after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the State of Virginia, the Virginia State Board of Elections, and the Virginia Commissioner of Elections on October 11, saying that by removing voters from the rolls too close to the November 5 general election, the state had violated the Act of National Voter Registration of 1993 (NVRA).
YOUNGKIN RETURNS DOJ’S LAWSUIT OVER ‘COMMON SENSE’ LAW REMOVING NON-CITIZENS FROM VOTER ROLL
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, Virginia. (Bonnie Cash/Getty Images)
“Let’s be clear about what just happened: just eleven days before the presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate more than 1,500 people, who identified themselves as noncitizens, on the voter rolls,” Youngkin said in a statement Friday.
“Almost all of these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their non-citizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities,” he added.
Voters fill out their ballots on Election Day 2023.
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If the high court were to take up the case, it would do so within days of the election.
