Lawsuit says Virginia illegally purging voter rolls less than a month before Election Day

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Several voting and immigrant rights groups have filed a lawsuit alleging that Virginia is illegally removing voters from the state’s voter rolls less than a month before Election Day.

According to the League of Women Voters , the lawsuit was filed on Monday by the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia in response to the state allegedly “illegally and systemically removing voters from the rolls only one month before the upcoming election.”

“This is an issue of fairness and this is an issue of every American citizen should have the right to vote,” said Joan Porte, President of the League of Women Voters of Virginia.

In August, Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) issued an executive order saying the Department of Elections shall make “daily updates” to the state’s voter rolls and “remove individuals who are unable to verify that they are citizens to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).” The lawsuit claims the executive order violates a federal law preventing states from systematically removing people from voter rolls 90 days before a federal election.

“We have a bad history in this country of engaging in shenanigans right before elections,” University of Richmond Law Professor Henry Chambers told 8News. “That’s one of the reasons why there are very specific reasons why you can purge people within 90 days and there are other reasons you can’t purge them within 90 days. And you can’t do it with a generalized program, and that’s what’s been alleged we’re seeing out of Governor Youngkin’s administration.”

Plus, the lawsuit says that, because DMV data is often inaccurate, the order has and will remove eligible voters from the rolls whose information in the DMV’s database is incorrect or who became naturalized citizens after getting their first driver’s license.

“The notion that the information that is coming in, that suggests that folks may not have been citizens — if that is not strong enough to suggest they are currently citizens, it’s possible that the court is more likely to say, ‘This is systematic and this is not targeted,’” said Chambers.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Attorney General Jason Miyares said, “We feel confident in the position the Department of Elections has taken and stand ready to defend.”

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