Oct. 30 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Virginia can continue with its purge of more than 1,600 voter registrations that state officials say are held by alleged noncitizens ahead of next week’s general election.
The court, in a 6-3 ruling, reversed a lower court’s decision to halt the registration removal because it was so close to the election. The court’s three liberal justices — Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — dissented from the decision.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, praised the Supreme Court decision, calling it “a victory for common sense and election fairness.”
“Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections,” he said in a statement.
“Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure and free from politically-motivated interference.”
The voter purge also directs Virginia’s attorney general’s office to open criminal investigations into those removed from voter rolls.
Opponents of the Youngkin’s program say it will disenfranchise eligible voters, including some who were born in the United States. They also argued it was against federal law because they claim it stripped eligible voters of their ability to vote despite the state saying it was only targeting noncitizens.
Two previous courts had ruled that the Youngkin’s voter purge violated the National Voter Registration Act’s so-called quiet period, which bars states from removing voters from rolls within 90 days of an election.
The emergency Supreme Court decision, which did not provide an explanation, was a victory for conservatives in Virginia and possibly other states, who have made the late voter purges a common election tactic, which often gave little, if any, time for those targeted to protest and correct if a mistake was made.
The Supreme Court decision was swiftly lambasted by civil and immigration rights groups who say the voter purge to remove qualified voters from voting rolls a week before the presidential election.
“Gov. Youngkin and Attorney General Miyares’ efforts to target naturalized citizen voters yielded the disenfranchisement of both natural born citizens and naturalized citizens,” Monica Sarmiento, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, which had filed the initial lawsuit against the voter purge program, said in a statement.
“It is a dangerous occurrence when lawful U.S. citizens are carelessly removed from the voter rolls.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia said it was “outraged” by the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Voters should choose their politicians — not the other way around,” it said on X, while urging those purged from voter rolls to check with their local registar, register via same-day registration and cast a provisional ballot.
The ruling comes as conservatives seek to limit the counting of some ballots across the country ahead of Nov. 5’s general election.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered Alabama to pause a similar voter purge program that sought to remove 3,251 registered Alabama voters.