In a few days, we will know who will lead this country. But a 9th-inning change up could have dire consequences.
Because a bombshell Supreme Court case turned 2024 on its head.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday allowing Virginia to remove hundreds of names from its voter rolls, supporting an effort aimed at preventing non-citizens from voting in the upcoming election.
This unsigned order reversed two lower court rulings that previously determined the removal of over 1,600 registered voters—done at the direction of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin—was illegal.
The Court’s three liberal justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, opposed the decision, signaling they would have upheld the lower court rulings.
As is typical with emergency appeals, the justices did not provide reasoning behind their order.
Former President Donald Trump strongly criticized the lower court rulings that blocked these registration removals, calling them on social media “a totally unacceptable travesty,” and stressing:
“Only U.S. Citizens should be allowed to vote.”
Governor Youngkin initiated the removal of these names on August 7, the final possible day before election restrictions on such actions took effect.
According to the National Voter Registration Act, voter registrations cannot be canceled within 90 days of an election—known as the “quiet period”—to ensure mistakenly removed individuals have adequate time to resolve any issues.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of Alexandria had previously intervened, blocking the purge and instructing election officials to notify the affected voters by Wednesday that their registrations were reinstated.
Giles emphasized that individuals could still be removed individually, but not through an extensive, sweeping action.
In response to the Supreme Court decision, Youngkin called it “a victory for commonsense and election fairness,” adding:
“Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections.”
Danielle Lang from the Campaign Legal Center, which sued alongside the Justice Department and other advocacy groups to challenge Youngkin’s action, noted that Virginians can still register and vote in person at their polling place on Election Day, November 5.
Lang criticized the decision, saying:
“The Supreme Court allowing Virginia to engage in a last-minute purge that includes many known eligible citizens in the final days before an election is outrageous.”
Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote as the election approaches.
Stay tuned to Prudent Politics.
