Fourth Circuit Sides With DOJ in Virginia Non-Citizen Voter Skirmish; Next Stop: Supreme Court

A funny thing happened on the way to Election Day 2024: While the Commonwealth of Virginia followed the same law it's been following for 18 years — under both Democrat and Republican administrations — and removed non-citizens from its voter rolls, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice decided it imperative to sue the state over this practice.

Here's some added background on the matter, compliments of Teri Christoph:

As RedState has been reporting, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Youngkin two weeks ago, alleging he had illegally cleaned Virginia's voter rolls back in August, when the names of over 6,000 non-citizens were removed. The lawsuit seemed like an odd, unnecessary move by the DOJ at the time since Virginia seemed like a shoo-in for Kamala Harris. Perhaps things were a little too close for comfort?
Youngkin appeared on FOX News Sunday last weekend to explain to host Shannon Bream all about the process involved when removing the names:
"To be clear this is not a purge, this is based on a law that was signed into effect in 2006 by then-Democrat governor Tim Kaine.
It starts with the basic premise that when someone walks in to one of our DMV's and self-identifies as a non-citizen, and then they end up on the voter rolls – either purposely or by accident – that we go through...an individualized process, based on that person's self-identification as a non-citizen, to give them fourteen days to affirm they are a citizen. And if they don't, they come off the voter rolls.
And, by the way, they have one last safeguard, which is they can come and same-day register and cast a provisional ballot."
Youngkin added that the timing was suspect: "It's been in effect for eighteen years, it's been applied universally by Republican and Democrat governors, and now, all of the sudden, when Virginia is getting tight...it launches a lawsuit against the commonwealth of Virginia when we are trying to make sure citizens vote, not non-citizens."

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As Teri reported, on Friday, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered a halt to Virginia's removal program and further ordered the state to reinstate over 1,600 of the voters who had been removed.

Virginia immediately appealed the case to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. On Sunday, the appellate court denied Virginia's motion for a stay of the district court's preliminary injunction. Per that ruling:

Appellants’ claims of irreparable injury absent a stay are weak. Under the preliminary injunction, appellants remain able to prevent noncitizens from voting by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes—options the district court specifically flagged at the hearing and in its written order. See ECF 11-1, at A-467, A-473, A-492. And the district court did not err in concluding that both the balance of the equities and the public interest favor interim equitable relief that gives full force and effect to a federal law that functions to prevent last-minute voter registration purges and to ensure that people who are legally entitled to vote are not prevented from doing so by faulty databases or bureaucratic mistakes. See Arcia, 772 F.3d at 1346 (noting that, during the 90-day quiet period, “the calculus changes” in favor of avoiding incorrectly removing eligible voters).

The court did find that one portion of the district court's order was insufficiently clear, so granted a stay as to that provision, but the meat of the decision stands for now.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) confirmed that they would be filing an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court.