The plan violated a 90-day quiet period preventing systematic changes before an election, the judge said.
ALEXANDRIA, Va.—A federal judge in Virginia has halted the commonwealth’s recent program to purge noncitizens from its voter rolls on an expedited basis.
Virginia’s program, announced on Aug. 7 by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, constituted a “clear violation” of the National Voter Registration Act’s (NVRA’s) prohibition on systematic attempts to clean up its voter rolls 90 days before an election, Judge Patricia Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia said during a hearing on Oct. 25.
Giles gave her order orally from the bench after a hearing on Oct. 24, during which the Justice Department and private plaintiffs urged her to issue a preliminary injunction. The order comes just nine business days before voters head to the polls in November and has raised questions about pre-election changes from both judges and state officials.
Youngkin responded by vowing to appeal Giles decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.“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,” Youngkin said on the social