Justice Department sues Virginia over effort to reduce voter rolls close to Election Day
The lawsuit — the second of its kind against a state in less than a month — argues that Virginia is in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
The Justice Department announced Friday that it is suing Virginia over its efforts to purge voter rolls within 90 days of an election, calling the state's actions a violation of federal voting laws.
The suit comes about two months after Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order requiring the state's Department of Elections to conduct daily updates to its voting list, including comparing the list of identified "noncitizens" to the state's existing list of registered voters.
Local officials are required to notify people found on both lists that their voter registration will be canceled if they fail to respond to the notice and affirm their citizenship within 14 days. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
According to the Justice Department, some of the people identified as noncitizens have U.S. citizenship, leading to some voter registrations being canceled unnecessarily.
"The Commonwealth’s unlawful actions here have likely confused, deterred, and removed U.S. citizens who are fully eligible to vote —the very scenario that Congress tried to prevent when it enacted the Quiet Period Provision," the DOJ said in its suit, referring to the purging of voter rolls within 90 days of Election Day.
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