Supreme Court Enables Virginia Voter Roll Cleanup
In a rather shocking decision this week, the Supreme Court announced it would allow the voter roll purge in Virginia.
This was a decision many, including myself, thought would be kicked down the road by the court with its recent history of rejecting voter fraud cases.
The ruling enables the state of Virginia to remove from its rolls voters who have been unable to prove they are citizens.
Shocking Ruling
When I am wrong, I am wrong, and I was completely on the wrong side of this case.
I was banking on the fact the Court has avoided election cases in the past, but this ruling is a game-changer for Republicans.
Governor Youngkin wanted to purge the rolls of voters who could not be confirmed as citizens, and the court agreed, allowing the governor to remove them before the election.
After the decision was announced, Youngkin stated, “Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections.
“Virginians also know that we have paper ballots, counting machines not connected to the internet, a strong chain of custody process, signature verification, monitored and secured drop boxes, and a ‘triple check’ vote counting process to tabulate results.”
Virginia’s Attorney General’s office added, “States are free to systematically remove noncitizens, as well as minors and fictitious persons, at any time, including within 90 days of an election, without running afoul of the NVRA.”
I want to be clear: I have always supported this case. My criticism is why the state waited so long to clean up the rolls to even be challenged by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
I also don’t understand how it can ever be a bad thing to remove possibly fraudulent names or non-citizens from voter rolls to protect the integrity of the election.
Now, numerous other states were blocked in the lower courts on this very front, so I am expecting a flurry of cases to go before the court before election day to clean up vote rolls in a similar fashion.
My state, Texas, is in the middle of a similar battle, with tens of thousands of names on the voter rolls that were unable to prove they were citizens, but the effort to have the names removed was blocked by the administration.
With this decision now in, I would hope that AG Paxton will take note and file his motion with the Supreme Court for the same review.