SCOTUS to decide on Virginia’s illegal voter purge program

Eligible voters were removed from the rolls as an election subversion stunt

A heads up: this week we expect the Supreme Court to decide whether to grant an emergency stay in our lawsuit seeking to stop Virginia’s illegal program to purge voters from the Commonwealth’s voter rolls. After a district court ruled that Virginia violated federal law and had to reinstate the more than 1,600 illegally-purged voters to the rolls, the Fourth Circuit denied an emergency stay pending appeal.

If you’re curious, our opposition is here and further background, analysis, relevant briefs, and court orders can be found here.

What you need to know about this case

The facts here are pretty simple. Virginia is breaking the law to keep citizens from voting and to score political points — all to further a lie about noncitizens voting in an attempt to deceive the American public. 

But don’t take my word for it: Five federal judges, including a Trump appointee (in a similar case in Alabama), have now said that these last-minute efforts to remove thousands of voters from the rolls violate the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits exactly this kind of activity within 90 days of an election.

The true impact of these last-minute purges is to make it harder for citizens — yes, genuine, bona fide citizens — to vote. In Virginia, all evidence suggests that the individuals who have been removed from the rolls are eligible voters who were born and raised in the United States. The same is true in other states, like Ohio, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee.

Why this purge? Why now? 

You won’t be shocked to hear — the strategy behind these purges seems to have nothing to do with protecting our elections, or even changing the results. 

Case in point: Virginia waited until the exact moment (again, 90 days before the election) when they were no longer allowed to make systemic changes to their voter rolls. As Orion Danjuma and Anna Dorman wrote at the time: 

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.

Suspicious, huh? So what’s this really about? 

In truth, this purge of eligible voters is part of a three-part plan to lay the groundwork to overturn election results:

1. Deceive voters by spreading lies about our election system,

2. Use those lies to disrupt the election, and…

3. Ultimately deny an election outcome they don’t like.

Because Virginia is unlikely to be a tipping point state in this election, the goal here is to create a false narrative of insecure elections or inaccurate voter rolls in Virginia as a pretext to subvert election results in other states. Still, it’s Virginia voters that have been caught in the crossfire of this subversion strategy. 

This is people like Nadra Wilson, who — as NPR reported — got swept up in the purge: 

Nadra Wilson of Lynchburg, Va., was concerned and confused when she received a letter in the mail from local election officials notifying her that her U.S. citizenship was in question.

The notice said she needed to affirm she was a U.S. citizen within 14 days or her voter registration would be canceled. It was first sent to an old address and then was forwarded. By the time Wilson received it in October, the deadline had passed.

But Wilson was puzzled by the letter. "I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. — I'm a citizen," Wilson said in an interview with NPR before showing her American passport as proof.

If the Supreme Court allows this illegal purge to go ahead — all in the spirit of promoting lies about our elections — the votes of thousands of eligible voters could be in jeopardy.