Virginia does not have to restore the registrations of 1,600 voters, some of whom appear to have been wrongly removed, ahead of next week’s election, the US supreme court said on Wednesday.
The court made the decision on its emergency docket and did not give a rationale for its decision, which is customary for rulings on an expedited basis. All three liberal justices on the court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – said they would not have halted a lower-court ruling earlier in October ordering the state to restore the voter registrations.
The legal dispute centers on a 7 August executive order by the Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, directing the state to run its voter registration rolls against DMV data on a daily basis to check for non-citizens. The justice department and civil rights groups sued, saying that the state was violating a federal law that prohibits systematic removals of voters within 90 days of a federal election.
Virginia has in person early voting up to 45 days before the election, it’s possible that someone who has already cast a ballot for this election could be removed from the voter registration.
So what happens then?
IANAL, but either the vote is counted or not counted, but it’s an absurd possibility showing that it’s too close to the election to be doing these purges. Hell a particularly evil prosecutor could probably charge someone with voter fraud.
Virginia isn’t really in play, and the number of votes in question won’t change that. I’ve got a bad feeling that this ruling was intended to serve a larger purpose than is immediately obvious. Perhaps a signal to state courts in other states? There is another shoe.
Wisconsin, Georgia, Montana, and Nebraska all have contentious races and Republican run election systems.
Also this could be a sign they’re backing State Legislature Independence theory where the legislature is the sole controller of sending delegates, representatives, and senators to Washington.