Virginia asks Supreme Court to allow it to purge suspected noncitizens from its voter rolls

WASHINGTON ? Virginia Republicans have asked the Supreme Court to let them reinstate a purge of suspected noncitizens from voter rolls.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares filed an emergency petition with the high court hours after a federal appeals court on Sunday upheld a lower court's ruling stopping the purge.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles blocked a state program Friday that had removed about 1,500 names since Aug. 7 because federal law prohibits voter purges within 90 days of an election. She also ordered the state to restore the registrations of those canceled during that period.

Miyares told the high court that decision violates "Virginia law and common sense."

He also said it will confuse voters, overload Virginia's election machinery and administrators, and likely lead to noncitizens incorrectly thinking they are allowed to vote.

Miyares said the Supreme Court needs to intervene by Tuesday because the district court ordered Virginia to comply by Wednesday.

Voting rights groups fought the state policy because it removed naturalized citizens from the rolls if they had previously declared themselves noncitizens on motor vehicle forms. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s program had notified suspected noncitizens they would be removed if they didn’t affirm their citizenship within 14 days.

But because years might have passed since the motor vehicle declarations, advocacy groups and the Justice Department challenged the program in court, arguing naturalized citizens were being removed from the voter rolls.

The advocacy groups quoted Prince William County Registrar Eric Olsen, who said at an election board meeting Sept. 30 that his office reviewed 162 people listed as noncitizens in the state’s computer system and found 43 had voted previously. But his office checked and found all 43 had verified their citizenship ? some as many as five times ? but were still dropped from voter rolls.

"For the second time in three days, a federal court ruled Virginia's purge of eligible citizens is unlawful,” said Ryan Snow, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “We urge the Supreme Court to stop this madness and make it clear that it is unacceptable to block eligible citizens from voting."

Studies have found a negligible number of suspected noncitizens vote, presumably because of the threat of criminal charges and deportation if caught. Studies by the Brennan Center for Justice and the libertarian Cato Institute have found noncitizen voting is essentially nonexistent.

But Republicans have made removal of suspected noncitizens a focus of their voter integrity lawsuits this year.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Virginia asks Supreme Court to allow it to purge suspected noncitizens