Oct. 27 (UPI) — A federal appeals court on Sunday refused to throw out a lower court order that ordered recently purged voters restored in Virginia, setting up a possible U.S. Supreme Court appeal.
Fourth Circuit Judges Albert Diaz, Toby Heyten and Stephanie Thacker, all Democrats, said they are “unpersuaded” by lawyers for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin seeking to block an injunction obtained by U.S. Justice Department and civil rights groups. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ruled the the move would be too disruptive to administerwith just over a week remaining before Election Day.
About 1,600 people were removed from voter rolls in an Aug. 7 executive order from Youngkin, according to court filings.
The appeals judges said neither the court nor the parties knew whether the people removed from the rolls “were in fact non-citizens” with at least some “eligible voters” had their registration canceled and didn’t know this was done.
Some may have re-registered.
It is illegal for non-citizens to cast ballots.
The three-judge panel’s order stressed that Virginia officials “remain able to prevent noncitizens from voting by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes.”
The lower court said the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is violated amid so-called “quiet period” before elections. The state uses a system Virginia to match citizenship data from the Department of Motor Vehicles with voter rolls.
In a court filing Friday, Youngkin and state Attorney General Jason Miyares, also a Republican, indicated in their motion the state planned to ask the Supreme Court to lift the injunction this week if the appeals court did not do so.
In Alabama, another federal court on Aug. 16 issued a similar ruling blocking a voter removal program.
In 2020, Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 10 percentage points with the 13 electoral votes going to Biden.
