A President Biden-appointed federal judge Friday ordered Virginia to reinstate the voter registrations of more than 1,600 residents who told the state they’re not US citizens and thus ineligible to vote.
Virginia’s GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin said the state will appeal for an emergency stay to block what he called “a stunning ruling.”
Youngkin told The Post in August that the latest tranche of canceled voters were part of a multi-year effort to clean up the state’s voter rolls.
US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, named by the Democratic president to the lifetime post in 2021, agreed with a Justice Department argument that dropping the voters during a “quiet period” of 90 days before a federal election violated federal law blocking such changes.
Advocates for the canceled voters said there were either bureaucratic errors in listing the voters as ineligible or some had checked the wrong box on a document such as a jury duty form.
The dropped voters will receive a letter informing them of their restored status — but with a warning that any who are noncitizens are still prohibited from voting under federal law.
Speaking to Fox News Channel’s “The Faulkner Focus,” Youngkin said, “The vast majority of these folks had presented immigration documents confirming that they were noncitizens,” which he said federal authorities recently confirmed.
Youngkin said he acted “under a law in Virginia that’s been in effect since 2006. It’s been applied by Republican and Democrat governors alike into this 90-day period.”
The Virginia law was enacted in 2006 and signed by then-Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, who this year is on the ballot for re-election to his Senate seat. Subsequent Democratic state leaders Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam ordered election officials to purge noncitizens from the voting rolls.
“It should never be illegal to remove an illegal voter,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, also a Republican, said after the ruling.
Former Green Beret Derrick Anderson, GOP nominee for the state’s 7th Congressional District seat, tweeted, “Voting is for citizens,” adding that Eugene Vindman, his Democratic opponent, should be “asked if he agrees” with Giles’ ruling.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley branded Giles’ ruling “the worst of judicial activism.”
“11 days before Election Day, a liberal judge ordered Virginia to keep non-citizens on its voter rolls” and “are now weaponizing the Department of Justice against Virginia voters,” Whatley said.
Donald Trump, speaking to reporters in Austin, Texas, blasted the ruling as “election interference” and praised Youngkin for “working hard” to block Giles’ decision.
“The outrageous decision goes against the very bedrock of our democracy,” he said. “Removing illegal voters off the voting rolls should be a big priority for this country, and yet, instead, we’re we’re scorned by a judge. This is blatantly un-American, and it’s election interference, and Kamala Harris is behind it very much.”
