By Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge on Friday blocked Virginia’s removal of people she said had not proven their citizenship from the voter rolls, saying it violated a federal ban on purging large numbers of voters in the latest 90 Days Before Elections.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered the state to reinstate voters it removed, less than two weeks before Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris were set to face each other in the Nov. 5 election.
Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed an executive order on August 7 requiring the commissioner of the Department of Elections to certify that the agency was conducting “daily voter roll updates” to, among other groups, remove people who cannot verify they are citizens.
U.S. citizens who were notified and did not confirm their citizenship within 14 days would be removed from the list of registered voters, the Justice Department said in a lawsuit challenging Virginia’s decision. It says this practice has led to citizens’ voter registration being canceled before elections.
Trump and his allies have repeatedly warned this year, without citing evidence, that they suspect large numbers of noncitizens could vote in the election. It is illegal for them to do this, and state and private reviews have found very few cases of this happening.
Judge Giles said Friday that she had found “a clear violation of the 90-day silence provision,” according to The Washington Post.
“It is no coincidence that this executive order was announced on the 90th day,” she said in court.
Youngkin said the state will appeal the ruling and take it to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
Trump called the ruling “a totally unacceptable travesty” and said the Supreme Court “will hopefully resolve it.”
(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Alistair Bell)
