CNN
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A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Virginia to proceed with a program aimed at removing suspected non-citizens from its voter registration rolls, in one of the high court’s first significant decisions, with Republicans heading into next week’s election.
The ConclusionReleased without reason by a majority of conservative justices, it would have allowed the state to keep some voters it suspects of being non-citizens off the rolls.
The court’s three liberals — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson — dissented. Liberals do not explain their reasoning.
Although the case involved a relatively small number of voters in a state not considered a battleground state in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the case fed into a broader political narrative pushed by some Republicans about the popular vote. Non-citizens.
“The legislative intervention by the Biden-Harris administration is irresponsible, irresponsible and political,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton responded to the decision. “States have a constitutional duty to prevent non-citizens from voting. The Supreme Court did the right thing.
But voting rights groups pointed to evidence that Virginia’s voter purge effort also caught out citizens who were eligible to vote. The groups slammed the Supreme Court’s unsigned order as “excessive” and “disturbing”.
“Every eligible voter has the right to vote and have their vote counted, and this ruling does not change that,” said Harris campaign spokesman Charles Ludwig. “It is illegal for non-citizens to vote under federal law.”
Legal experts, meanwhile, could not parse the meaning from the court’s ruling due to lack of interpretation. Although this is not unusual in the court’s “shadow docket,” where urgent cases are routinely handled, the court sometimes leaves traces of its reasoning in high-profile cases.
In this case, the majority says nothing.
“This is one of the clearest examples of misuse of the shadow document,” said Orion Danjuma, a consultant for Defending Democracies, who lamented that the groups had “no reason to understand” the High Court’s call.
Both the plan and the legal battle took on sharp political overtones as Trump and other Republicans pushed false narratives about widespread noncitizen voting. The 1,600 voter registrations Virginia said came from citizens who did not self-identify, but the U.S. District Court said were not fully vetted for citizenship status.
Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections; None of the lower court decisions changed that fact.
Trump and other Republicans have seized on the illegal voting claims, and it’s part of their argument to explain the former president’s loss in 2020. But cases of non-citizens voting are very rare. A recent Georgia audit of the 8.2 million people on its rolls found 20 registered noncitizens — only nine of whom voted.
The Virginia case began with an order signed in August by Virginia Gov. Glenn Young, a Republican, that required election officials to take more aggressive steps to match residents who self-identified as noncitizens to the Department of Motor Vehicles against voter rolls. Those matches.
Youngin called the Supreme Court’s order Wednesday a “victory for common sense and electoral integrity.”
State voters can “vote on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure and free of politically-motivated interference,” he said.
Voting and immigrant rights groups framed the Supreme Court’s ruling as “cruel” and predicted it would sow confusion.
“The Supreme Court’s decision to allow Virginia a last-minute purge involving several known eligible citizens in the final days before the election is outrageous,” said Daniel Long with the Campaign Law Center. But the voters will decide this election, not the courts. Eligible Virginia voters should be aware that regardless of this purge, they can still register to vote and vote on Election Day.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said the Biden administration disagreed with the order.
“The department brought this case to ensure that every eligible American citizen can vote in our elections,” the spokeswoman said.
The Biden administration and voting rights groups sued, and a U.S. district court last week concluded that at least some eligible U.S. citizens had registered under the program. District Judge Patricia Toliver Giles said none of the parties involved in the case knew for sure the citizenship status of the purged voters because the information was not verified.
Opponents of the plan relied on the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which bars states from making “systematic” changes to voting rolls 90 days after a federal election. The Biden administration said Young’s order created exactly that kind of formal program before the so-called “quiet period” mandated by federal law.
Virginia argued that peacetime prohibitions applied only to eligible voters, not to noncitizens.
None of the lower court orders prevented the state from evaluating individual eligibility, or ultimately striking noncitizen voters from the rolls, or granting noncitizens the right to vote in federal elections. Federal law only prevents “formal” changes.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — all appointed by Democratic leaders — upheld most of Giles’ ruling, suspending the program and requiring the state to return 1,600 enrollees.
In their urgent appeal to the Supreme Court, Virginia election officials relied in part on a still-evolving legal doctrine that cautions federal courts against making last-minute changes to the state of voting rules before an election. The so-called “Purcell principle” is intended to prevent federal courts from being drawn into last-minute election disputes.
Virginia argued that the federal district court violated that policy by suspending the program. Voting rights groups countered that the case contained a federal law that specifically allowed plaintiffs to challenge last-minute voting changes.
Attorneys for Virginia also pointed to its desire for same-day registration. Those whose registrations were erroneously canceled can re-register at the polling station in person by confirming their citizenship.
Opponents in Virginia countered that the option wouldn’t solve the problem for purged voters, who planned to fail to vote without knowing their registrations had been revoked and would cause confusion at the polls — especially if election workers weren’t adequately prepared to deal with the situation.
Because the Supreme Court offered no explanation for its decision, it’s unclear which of Virginia’s arguments are persuasive, or if federal courts wade into election disputes because the majority of justices are so close to election.
The problem with assuming the court ruled based on Purcell and Time is that the National Voter Registration Act’s “quiet period” includes challenges to elections, said Richard Brifault, a Columbia law professor and election law expert. School.
The Supreme Court’s silence was especially puzzling, he said, given that lower courts have consistently ruled the case a lost cause for Virginia.
“It’s hard to say because there’s nothing out there,” said Richard Prifault, a professor at Columbia Law School and an election law expert. “It’s pretty amazing.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.
