By The Opinion
12 Oct 2024, 8:35 PM EDT
He Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit on Friday against election officials in Virginia that accuses the state of remove names from voter lists in violation of federal electoral law.
The lawsuit filed Friday in District Court in Alexandria says an executive order issued in August by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin requiring daily updates of voter lists to remove ineligible voters violates federal law.
The National Voter Registration Act requires a 90-day “quiet period” before elections for maintenance of voter rolls.
“Congress adopted the National Voter Registration Act’s silent period restriction to prevent error-prone last-minute actions that too often disenfranchise qualified voters,” said Deputy Attorney General Kristen Clarkein a statement. “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy and the Department of Justice will continue to ensure the protection of the rights of qualified voters.”
A coalition of immigrant rights groups and the League of Women Voters filed a similar lawsuit earlier this week.
Youngkin’s executive order was implemented exactly 90 days before the election, but the Justice Department points to signs that removals under the order have been ongoing since then.
The executive order directed local election officials to initiate removals of any voter who indicated on DMV forms that they were not citizens. Those voters are sent emails giving them 14 days to confirm their citizenship or cancel their registrations.
Previous iterations of the program made potential citizens will be removed from the liststhe Justice Department alleged in its lawsuit, pointing to recent comments by a county elections official who said they analyzed dozens of voters who had been purged under the program’s protocols and They found that many of them had repeatedly affirmed their citizenship, including some with social security numbers.
In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Youngkin accused the Biden administration of “filing an unprecedented lawsuit” less than 30 days before the election.
“Virginians, and Americans, will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American democracy,” Youngkin said, while vowing to defend the policy.
The lawsuit comes shortly after a similar Justice Department lawsuit over a move by Alabama officials to initiate the elimination of voters from the rolls.
The Republicans have made the alleged threat of non-citizens voting a central theme of the 2024 campaign, although cases of non-citizens casting ballots are extremely rare.
Keep reading:
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