Virginia’s efforts to remove people off the voter lists within ninety days before an election have prompted the Justice Department to declare on Friday that it is suing the state, claiming that the state’s activities violate federal voting regulations.
The lawsuit was filed around two months after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order mandating that the state’s Department of Elections update its voter registration list every day and compare the list of individuals labeled as “noncitizens” with the state’s current voter registration list.
People who are discovered to be on both lists must be notified by local officials that their right to vote will be revoked if they do not affirm their citizenship and reply to the notification within a period of 14 days. Voting in federal elections by non-citizens is prohibited.
A portion of the individuals labeled as noncitizens, according to the Justice Department, are really citizens of the United States, which has resulted in the needless cancellation of certain voter registrations.
Referring to the purging of voter rolls within 90 days of Election Day, the DOJ said in its suit that “the Commonwealth’s unlawful actions here have likely confused, deterred, and removed U.S. citizens who are fully eligible to vote —the very scenario that Congress tried to prevent when it enacted the Quiet Period Provision.”
43 of the 162 persons identified as noncitizens during an earlier attempt, made prior to July, to remove noncitizens from Virginia’s Prince William County voter lists were citizens of the United States, as per the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
Youngkin described the lawsuit as a “desperate attempt” to undermine the credibility of the election and as “politically motivated” in a statement.
Youngkin, an associate of former President Donald Trump, stated, “Virginians — and Americans — will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American democracy.”
In response to the lawsuit, Trump praised Youngkin on Friday and said that the Justice Department and Vice President Kamala Harris were attempting to weaken democracy.
“We have to defend American democracy and American voters!” Trump stated on Truth Social in a post.
The action names the Virginia Department of Elections; the department declined to comment, stating that it does not comment on ongoing legal matters.
An inquiry for comment on Friday night was not immediately answered by the state’s nominated elections commissioner.
This is the second case the DOJ has filed against a state in the last month due to alleged violations of a National Voter Registration Act provision that states that although states are free to purge voters for any number of reasons, they are not permitted to remove voters in a systematic manner so close to a federal election because the majority of those impacted are frequently naturalized Americans.
Alleged breaches of the so-called Quiet Provision led to the DOJ filing a lawsuit against the State of Alabama in September.
Since 2004, Virginia has supported the Democratic Party in every presidential election. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, recently traveled to the state alongside Youngkin to assess the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.
In a state that the nonpartisan Cook Political Report assesses as a solid Democratic contest, Sen. Tim Kaine, the running mate of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, is up against Republican opponent Hung Cao in the Senate campaign.
On Monday, the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights sued Youngkin on its own, claiming that the voter purging procedure was unlawful, biased, and riddled with mistakes.
In a statement released on Friday, the organization’s executive director, Monica Sarmiento, hailed the DOJ action and said that Youngkin’s executive order had “disenfranchised hundreds if not thousands” of eligible voters on election eve.
“The Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights applauds the Department of Justice for joining in challenging Virginia’s unlawful citizenship purge program,” stated Sarmiento.
