By Samantha Willis

On Monday, Virginia filed an emergency stay asking the Supreme Court to block a federal court’s order for the state to add 1,600 people back to the voter rolls. The removals stemmed from an executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and are at the center of two lawsuits the state is facing from voter rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares addressed the stay to Chief Justice John G. Roberts, after federal Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles on Oct. 25 ordered people stripped from Virginia’s voter rolls to be reinstated because eligible voters may have been included in the state’s voter roll purges. Youngkin’s executive order directed the state DMV to send lists of people who identified as noncitizens to the state Board of Elections for daily removal from voter lists. The 2006 state law Youngkin’s order is based on called for this process to occur monthly.

The League of Women Voters, the Virginia Coalition for Immigrants Rights and the DOJ have filed separate lawsuits against the state for the ramped up removals, citing instances where eligible voters who had made errors on their DMV paperwork had been removed, as well as people who became naturalized citizens after they filed their DMV paperwork. The groups also said the removals are systematic and happened within 90 days of Election Day, a violation of federal law.

Youngkin and Miyares, both Republicans, have argued that the executive order merely reinforces the 2006 law implemented under a Democratic governor and that the removals were individualized. They, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, have characterized the legal challenges to the removals as politically motivated actions that hinder the state’s ability to bar noncitizens from voting.

It is a federal crime for noncitizens to vote, and there is no evidence that it’s a widespread problem in America. A Brennan Center for Justice survey held after the 2016 presidential election found just 30 instances of noncitizens voting out of  23.5 million votes cast. Recent voter data audits in states like Georgia and Arizona have revealed negligible cases of noncitizens voting. 

Giles’ order would “irreparably injure Virginia’s sovereignty, confuse her voters, overload her election machinery and administrators, and likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote, a criminal (offense) that will cancel the franchise of eligible voters,” Miyares wrote in the stay, requesting the high court issue it by Tuesday. Giles mandated that the state comply with her order to reinstate purged voters by Wednesday.