Believe it or not, a federal district judge stopped Virginia’s effort to remove people who self-identified as noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls. This, of course, defies common sense, and the Supreme Court has, fortunately, stayed the lower court’s directive, following Virginia’s emergency appeal. The three liberal Associate Justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have denied the application and allowed the ruling to stand.

As you might expect, the genesis of the lower court’s order was a Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit seeking to stop Virginia from taking noncitizens off of the state voter rolls. “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, and the Justice Department will continue to ensure that the rights of qualified voters are protected,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, head of the Civil Rights Division. This is a puzzling statement given the fact that noncitizens have no right to vote.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin undertook the effort as part of the implementation of Executive Order 35 focusing on “Comprehensive Election Security Protecting Legal Voters and Accurate Counting.” The Executive Order merely implemented existing law; there is no new law involved in this case. The law at issue was signed in 2006 by Democrat Gov. Tim Kaine.

Actually, the DOJ does not contest that Virginia is right on the merits of the case;  It merely contends with the timing. Apparently, Virginia is free to take this action after the election, which again, makes no sense. They need to remove noncitizens before the election if they are to protect the integrity of the election.

But the DOJ argues such action violates the “Quiet Period Provision” of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act which requires states to complete “not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.”

Virginia’s effort, however, is an ongoing process that removes people who had previously presented documentations confirming their noncitizen status but yet remained, inexplicably, on the state’s voter rolls.

The case continues to move on an expedited basis, so we are sure to hear more about it before Election Day.