FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — A coalition of immigrant rights groups and the League of Women Voters in Virginia has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares of an ongoing “purge” of voter rolls that will disenfranchise voters.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, alleges that an executive order issued by Youngkin in August requiring daily updates to voter rolls to remove ineligible voters violates a federal law that requires a 90-day “quiet period” prior to elections on voter roll maintenance.
The silent period is there to prevent erroneous deletions, according to the lawsuit. Virginia’s policy of using Department of Motor Vehicles data to determine a voter’s citizenship and eligibility is certain to disenfranchise legitimate voters, the lawsuit alleges, because DMV data is often inaccurate or outdated.
“Defendants’ purge program is far from… a well-designed, well-intentioned list-keeping effort. It is an illegal, discriminatory, and bug-ridden program that has caused the cancellation of voter registrations of naturalized U.S. citizens and jeopardized the rights of countless others,” the lawsuit says.
Immigrant citizens are at particular risk, the lawsuit states, because individuals can obtain driver’s licenses as lawful permanent residents, refugees or asylum seekers, and later become naturalized citizens. But Department of Motor Vehicles records show that individual is still a noncitizen.
Christian Martinez, a spokesman for Youngkin, said Virginia complies with state and federal law.
“Each step in the established list maintenance process is mandated by Virginia law and begins after an individual declares that they are not a citizen. The DMV is required by law to send information about individuals who indicate they are not citizens in DMV transactions to (the state elections office), he said. “Anyone spreading disinformation about it is ignoring or trying to undermine Virginia law because they want noncitizens to vote.”
The attorney general’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment.
It is not clear how many voters were removed as a result of the executive order. The lawsuit claims the Virginia Department of Elections has refused to provide data on its efforts. Youngkin’s executive order states that Virginia purged 6,303 voters from the voter rolls between January 2022 and July 2023 over citizenship issues.
At the local level, the lawsuit cites anecdotal evidence that county governments have removed voters since Youngkin’s executive order was issued and within the 90-day silent period required by federal law. In Fairfax County, the state’s most populous jurisdiction, minutes from the August Board of Elections meeting show 49 voters were removed.
According to the minutes, the elections office received data on 66 voters who were likely considered non-citizens. The data came from both the state elections office and an “Election Integrity Task Force” affiliated with the Fairfax County Republican Committee. The provincial registrar said the elections office has sent notices to all 66 and given them 14 days to verify their citizenship and eligibility. Of those, 17 responded and were kept on the docket. The remaining 49 were removed and their names forwarded to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and the Virginia Attorney General’s office for possible prosecution.
The lawsuit says the removals from Fairfax, as well as other local actions, demonstrate that legitimate voters are being improperly removed if they do not respond within the fourteen-day period provided to them.
Orion Danjuma, an attorney with The Protect Democracy Project, one of the legal groups that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, said what is happening in Virginia is part of a national effort by supporters of former President Donald Trump to sow doubts on election integrity. and delegitimize the results if Trump loses in November.
“The former president’s allies are advancing a narrative that is false,” he said. “And they are risking every citizen’s right to vote to do this.”
The lawsuit asks a judge to block the state from removing voters under what it describes as the state’s “purge program” and to restore the voter rolls of those removed as a result.
A hearing on the request has not yet been scheduled.
