An illegal voter purge based on conspiracy theories

Why we’re suing the Virginia Department of Elections

Today, we — along with the League of Women Voters, the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, the Campaign Legal Center, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Advancement Project — sued the Commonwealth of Virginia. Filing here.

Long story short, the Governor of Virginia has ordered the Virginia Department of Elections and local election officials to systematically remove citizens who are eligible to vote from the voter rolls. This violates federal law — the National Voter Registration Act — in three ways:

• They’re removing voters well beyond the 90-day cutoff before federal elections for systematic changes to the voter rolls. 

• They’re disproportionately — and discriminatorily — targeting naturalized citizens for removal. 

• They’re requiring voters to provide burdensome additional proof of U.S. citizenship beyond what’s required by federal law. 

Thus, even were Virginia’s policy adopted with the best of intentions, it would be patently illegal because of the proximity to the election. It could also result in eligible voters being stripped of their right to cast their vote and have that vote counted in November. 

But the policy was not adopted with the best of intentions. Instead, it’s a shameless nod to conspiracy theories — lies about who is registered and voting in our elections — and potentially part of a broader campaign to delegitimize and subvert the results of the 2024 election if Donald Trump does not win. 

What’s happening in Virginia? 

On August 7th — exactly the 90-day cutoff date when, per federal law, states can no longer make systematic voter roll changes — Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order creating a voter purge program of alleged noncitizens. The order instructs that anyone suspected of not being a citizen have their voter registration canceled unless they affirm their citizenship within 14 days. While Virginia officials have been unresponsive to multiple records requests, it seems quite clear that these purges are ongoing. 

Not only is this illegal based on the timeline alone (again, no systemic changes starting 90 days before an election), it’s also likely to result in naturalized citizens — legal voters all — having their registration canceled. 

Why? Virginia is relying on DMV data it knows is likely stale and error-prone to identify suspected noncitizens. Putting aside the risk of errantly checking a single box on a DMV form — and who doesn’t have a DMV horror story — DMV data can at most indicate that at some point, an individual was not a citizen. 

Virginia — like all states — allows legal immigrants to get drivers’ licenses and register their vehicles. Those licenses are valid for 8 years. Additionally, the DMV does not require lawful residents to show updated evidence of legal status to renew their license if they provided such proof since 2004. That means that citizenship data could be up to 20 years out of date.

But a lot can happen over 20 years — including changes in citizenship status. 

If someone became a citizen and then registered to vote — indeed, voter registration is often offered at naturalization ceremonies — their registration will be at risk of cancellation under Governor Youngkin’s order. 

In short, Virginia is purging people who were noncitizens at some point in the last 20 years. And they are doing so within the 90-day period before an election expressly protected by federal law precisely because drastic changes in the immediate leadup to an election are often error prone, which can cause chaos and confuse voters. And that’s the point. 

Where is this coming from? 

Unfortunately, the illegal purges in Virginia are just one outgrowth of swirling conspiracy theories and lies about who is voting in our elections and whether everyone registered is legally allowed to vote. 

To be clear, our elections are secure and overwhelmingly only eligible Americans vote in them.

Each step of the election process is verified and every state — including Virginia — has legal safeguards that ensure only citizens vote.

Lies spread about immigrants and voting are simply trying to divide us and undermine confidence in our elections. 

These falsehoods are a deliberate strategy laying the groundwork for a potential effort to overturn the results in November if Donald Trump is not elected. 

As we explained last month: 

[T]he utility of these lies to the authoritarian movement does not end with suppressing the vote in immigrant communities. As the movement has repeatedly telegraphed, the plan is to use these lies as a pretext to suggest election results are not trustworthy, allowing the movement to undermine and challenge the results in November.

Since 2020, we’ve seen a sustained effort to foment distrust in our electoral systems and of the officials who administer them. Think about the cascade of lies this movement has spread since 2020: that Dominion voting machines manipulated votes; that illegal ballots were counted in places like Atlanta, Milwaukee, Phoenix and Detroit; that “ballot mules” stuffed ballot drop-boxes, to name just a few. (Litigation, including our own, has been successful at debunking and securing accountability for spreading many of these lies, necessitating the creation of new ones.) Lies about noncitizen voting are just another way of advancing the false narrative that U.S. elections have and will be “stolen.” 

Read our whole piece here. 

Unfortunately, that’s why it’s not enough to simply stop these purges in court. If and when we win this case, the people spreading these lies are likely to lie about the outcome, claiming bias and interference and that requiring Virginia to follow the law somehow means that ineligible voters are voting. 

For that reason, it’s important that we all understand and speak clearly about what’s going on here. This isn’t just an effort to disenfranchise voters. It’s an effort to muddy the waters, to spread lies, to see what sticks, and just generally make a mess so that, if Donald Trump loses, the excuses and conspiracies are primed and ready.  

But the American people and the American legal system are smarter than that. 

We know that our elections are safe and secure. We will not be divided by these lies nor will we allow these lies to serve as an excuse to disenfranchise any of our fellow citizens or undermine the will of the people and a peaceful transfer of power.