Appeals court rules against Virginia’s effort to block re-instatement of suspected noncitizens to voter rolls

A federal appeals court on Sunday ruled that a lower court was correct to re-instate some 1,600 Virginia voters who have questionable citizenship status to the rolls.

The ruling came after immigrants and women’s rights groups sued the state and its Board of Elections after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order in August directing state officials to identify noncitizens, who were given two weeks to dispute being disqualified before being removed from voter rolls.

Youngkin’s attorneys argued that the law applies to actual voters and that removing non-citizens isn’t covered. The appeals court for the Fourth Circuit said the state was mixing various parts of the law together.

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“That is not how courts interpret statutes,” the appeals court said in its ruling. 

On Sunday, he vowed to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“It’s commonsense: noncitizens shouldn’t be on our voter rolls,” he wrote on X. 

“Thank you @JasonMiyaresVA for filing immediately with the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency appeal of the order for Virginia to put over 1,500 people who self-identified as non-citizens back on the voter rolls,” the governor said to Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares. 

On Friday, U.S. Judge Patricia Giles issued a preliminary injunction to reinstate all voters who had been removed from state voter rolls in the past 90 days. The judge found that the removals had been “systematic,” not individualized, and were thus a violation of federal law.

Her ruling came after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the State of Virginia, Virginia State Board of Elections and Virginia Commissioner of Elections on Oct. 11, saying that by removing voters from rolls too close to the Nov. 5 general election, the state had violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

YOUNGKIN HITS BACK AT DOJ SUIT OVER ‘COMMON SENSE’ LAW THAT CULLS NONCITIZENS FROM VOTER ROLL

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia is seen in Alexandria, Va. (Bonnie Cash/Getty Images)

“Let’s be clear about what just happened: only eleven days before a Presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate over 1,500 individuals–who self-identified themselves as noncitizens–back onto the voter rolls,” Youngkin said in a statement Friday. 

“Almost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities,” he added. 

Voters fill out their ballots on Election Day in 2023.

Should the case be picked up by the high court, it would come within days of the election.