U.S. Judge Patricia Giles issued a preliminary injunction, telling Virginia to restore 1,600 people to the state’s voter rolls.
Giles found “that the removals had been in fact ‘systematic,’ not individualized, and were thus a violation of federal law.”
In August, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin told state agencies to remove ineligible people from the state’s voter rolls.
The DOJ sued Virginia, claiming the state violated Section 8(c)(2) of the NVRA, also known as the Quiet Period Provision.
That rule states that states cannot remove voters from the rolls “no later than 90 days before federal elections.”
Youngkin signed the EO on August 7. The election is November 5.
The DOJ said in the lawsuit that “systematic removal programs are more error-prone than other forms of list maintenance, and eligible voters placed on the path to removal days or weeks before Election Day may be deterred from voting or unable to participate in the election on the same terms that they would have but for the Commonwealth’s error.”
The DOJ also claimed that the state removed 43 “likely U.S. citizens” in Prince William County.
Lawyers admitted the state removed 18 citizens:
“How many more are there?” Giles asked rhetorically at a hearing Friday.Giles said it was “not happenstance” that Youngkin had issued his executive order to purge the voter rolls exactly 90 days before Election Day.She rejected a request to pause her ruling, despite an argument by Virginia’s lawyer Charles Cooper, who told her, “There are going to be hundreds of noncitizens back on these rolls.”“Every time a noncitizen votes it cancels out a legal vote,” Cooper said.
“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.”“Almost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities,” the governor said.“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,” Youngkin said.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY