The U.S. Department of Justice is filing a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Virginia, alleging that the state has been removing voters from registration lists too close to Election Day. Virginia has been eliminating noncitizens and residents who failed to verify their residency following Governor Glenn Youngkin’s executive order focused on election integrity, signed earlier this year.
The complaint asserts that the Virginia Board of Elections and Virginia Commissioner of Elections Susan Beals have violated the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). This act requires states to complete voter roll maintenance at least 90 days before an election under the Quiet Period Provision. The Department of Justice is accusing Governor Youngkin of breaching the NVRA by instructing the state’s election commissioner to regularly update voter logs to remove individuals who have been “identified as noncitizens” or who have not responded to requests to verify their citizenship within 14 days.
As a result of Youngkin’s executive order, the state has removed 6,303 individuals from voter logs. “The Executive Order formalized the Program and announced that 6,303 individuals had been removed from the rolls pursuant to the same process between January 2022 and July 2024,” the complaint says. The complaint notes that voters were removed if they answered “no” to questions concerning their citizenship on certain forms submitted to the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). “This systematic voter removal program, which the State is conducting within 90 days of the upcoming federal election, violates the Quiet Period Provision,” the DOJ said.
Youngkin rejected the DOJ’s characterization of his executive order in an X post. “With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls,” he wrote. “Virginians – and Americans – will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy.”
“With the support of our Attorney General, we will defend these commonsense steps, that we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us,” he added. “Virginia’s election will be secure and fair, and I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.”
The lawsuit filed by the Biden-Harris DOJ against Virginia follows a similar lawsuit against Alabama and its Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen over the state’s attempts to remove noncitizen voters. In that case, the DOJ is seeking injunctive relief that “would restore the ability of impacted eligible voters to vote unimpeded on Election Day,” and “would prohibit future quiet period violations,” the DOJ said in a statement.