(The Center Square) – With less than a week left to register to vote in Virginia, a coalition of groups is filing a lawsuit against the commonwealth, saying voter roll purges violate federal law.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria on Monday, says the commonwealth is in violation of the National Voter Registration Act. Plaintiffs are 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.
The group is asking the court to declare the voter purge program “unlawful” and restore all “unlawfully” removed voters to the rolls and “provide public and individualized notice thereof, produce the list of voters identified as potential noncitizens.”
The groups say Executive Order 35, issued by Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Aug. 7, requires daily updates to the voter rolls, including the removal of deceased voters, voters who have moved, and voters who have been deemed ineligible, including felons, mentally incapacitated and noncitizens is in violation of federal law.
The lawsuit cites “quiet period” in the Registration Act, in which the plaintiffs say federal law mandates that “no such voter cancelation or list maintenance programs may be conducted” 90 days before an election.
The groups say the “purge program” is “illegal, discriminatory, and error-ridden.”
“Defendants’ Purge Program is far from ... a well-designed, well-intended list maintenance effort," the lawsuit says. "It is an illegal, discriminatory, and error-ridden program that has directed the cancelation of voter registrations of naturalized U.S. citizens and jeopardizes the rights of countless others.”
In Virginia, voters’ identities are verified using Department of Motor Vehicles data and other “trusted data sources” to update voter rolls daily.
The commonwealth is one of three states requiring individuals to provide their full nine-digit Social Security number to register for voting. In addition, the DMV “requires applicants to submit proof of identity and legal presence for those who do not yet hold a valid Virginia credential.
At the time the governor issued the executive action, Youngkin’s office indicated that over the last two years, nearly 80,000 deceased voters had been removed from voter rolls via a “comprehensive audit” by conducting multiple National Change of Address mailings.
In addition, between January 2022 and July this year, 6,303 noncitizens were removed from the voter rolls, according to the executive order .
Shaun Kenney, director of communications for Attorney General Jason Miyares, told The Center Square their office feels “confident in the position the Department of Elections has taken and stand ready to defend.”
Christian Martinez, Youngkin’s press secretary, issued a statement to The Center Square defending Virginia’s election laws.
It said, “The Commonwealth of Virginia fully complies with all federal and state election laws. These attacks are baseless and are promoting misinformation. Every step in the established list maintenance process is mandated by Virginia law and begins after an individual indicates they are not a citizen. The DMV is mandated by law to send information about individuals who indicate they are a noncitizen in DMV transactions to ELECT. ELECT is mandated by law to flag these individuals for local registrars, who are then mandated by law to contact the individuals to see if their declaration was in error. Their voter registrations are then cancelled after a waiting period, as mandated by law. Anyone spreading misinformation about it is either ignoring Virginia law or is trying to undermine it because they want noncitizens to vote.”
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