A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Virginia to continue a program that state officials say is aimed at removing suspected noncitizens from their voter registration rolls, siding with Republicans in one of the first significant rulings. of the superior court linked to next week’s election.
Issued by a majority of conservative judges, the decision is unfounded and will allow the state to keep voters it suspects are non-citizens off the rolls.
The court’s three liberals — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented but did not explain their reasoning..
Although the case involved a relatively small number of voters in a state that is not considered a swing state in the race between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the case fed into a broader political narrative promoted by some Republicans about the vote. widespread of non-citizens.
“The Biden-Kamala administration’s legal meddling was irresponsible, reckless and political,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in response to the ruling.
“States have a constitutional duty to prevent non-citizens from voting. The Supreme Court did the right thing.”
But voting rights groups pointed to evidence that Virginia’s voter ban effort also targeted citizens who were eligible to vote.
These groups criticized the Supreme Court’s unsigned order as “outrageous” and “disturbing.”
Legal experts, in turn, were unable to analyze the meaning of the court’s decision due to a lack of explanation.
While this is not uncommon in the court’s shadow docket, when cases are handled and resolved as emergencies and do not go through the full process of briefing and hearing a formal opinion, the court sometimes leaves clues to its justification in high-profile cases. .
In this case, the majority said nothing.
“This is one of the clearest examples of the misuse of shadow docket,” said Orion Danjuma, lawyer for Protect Democracy, who lamented that the groups have “no reasoning to understand” the high court’s call.
For the Governor of Virginia, the order is a “victory for common sense”
Both the program and the legal fight took on sharply political tones, as Trump and other Republicans fed false narratives about widespread noncitizen voting.
About 1,600 voter records that Virginia said were self-identified noncitizens are in question, but a U.S. District Court said they were not fully vetted to determine citizenship status.
Non-citizens are not permitted to vote in federal elections; none of the lower court rulings changed that fact.
Trump and other Republicans seized on allegations of illegal voting and this was part of the argument they used to explain the former president’s 2020 defeat.
But documented cases of noncitizens voting are extremely rare. A recent audit of Georgia found that out of 8.2 million people on its rolls, only 20 registered non-citizens were found – and only nine of them voted.
The Virginia case began in August with an order signed by the state’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, that demanded that election officials take more aggressive steps to cross-check residents who declared themselves as noncitizens with the Department of Motor Vehicles against the lists. of voters and thus remove identified non-citizens.
Youngkin called the Supreme Court’s order on Wednesday (30) a “victory for common sense and electoral justice.”
The state’s voters, he said, “can vote on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure and free from politically motivated interference.”
Voting rights groups criticize court order
Immigrant and voting rights groups framed the Supreme Court decision as “outrageous” and predicted it would sow confusion.
“The Supreme Court allowing Virginia to engage in a last-minute voter turnout, which includes many known eligible citizens in the final days before an election, is outrageous,” said Danielle Lang of the Campaign Legal Center.
“But voters will decide this election, not the courts. Eligible Virginia voters should know that regardless, they can register to vote on Election Day and actually vote.”
A Justice Department spokesperson said the Biden administration disagreed with the order.
“The Department filed this action to ensure that every eligible American citizen can vote in our elections,” the spokesperson said.
The Biden administration and voting rights groups sued, and a U.S. District Court found last week that at least some eligible U.S. citizens had their records expunged under the program.
District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said none of the parties involved in the case knew with certainty the citizenship status of voters removed from the rolls because the information had not been verified.
Those opposing the program relied on a 1993 law, the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from making “systematic” changes to voter rolls within 90 days of a federal election.
The Biden administration said Youngkin’s order created just this kind of systematic program within the so-called “quiet period” mandated by federal law.
Virginia argued that the silent period bans applied only to qualified voters, not noncitizens.
None of the lower court’s orders prevented the state from making individual eligibility assessments, or from ultimately removing noncitizen voters from the rolls, nor did they give noncitizens the right to vote in federal elections. Federal law only prohibits “systematic” changes.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — all appointed by Democratic presidents — upheld most of Giles’ ruling, keeping the program paused and requiring the state to return the 1,600 applicants to the rolls.
In their emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, Virginia election officials relied in part on a still-developing legal theory that warns federal courts against making last-minute changes to the status quo of voting rules before an election.
The so-called “Purcell principle” aims to prevent federal courts from being drawn into last-minute election controversies.
Virginia argued that the federal district court violated that principle by pausing the program. Voting rights groups argued that there was a federal law at play in this case that specifically allowed plaintiffs to challenge last-minute voting changes.
Virginia lawyers also pointed to its same-day filing option. Those whose registrations were improperly canceled could re-register at an in-person voting location, affirming their citizenship.
Virginia opponents argued that this option would not solve the problem for withdrawn voters who planned to vote by mail without knowing that their registrations had been canceled, and that it would risk confusion at polling places – particularly if poll workers were not adequately prepared. to deal with the scenario.
Election experts struggle with the court’s reasoning
Because the Supreme Court offered no explanation for its ruling, it is unclear which of Virginia’s arguments were persuasive, or whether the majority of justices decided it was too close to the election for federal courts to get involved in election disputes.
The problem with assuming the court decided the case based on Purcell and timing is that the National Voter Registration Act’s “quiet period” necessarily involves challenges that arise directly against an election, said Richard Briffault, a professor and election law expert. at Columbia Law School.
Given that lower courts have consistently viewed the case as a loser for Virginia, the Supreme Court’s silence was particularly disconcerting, he said.
“It’s hard to say because there’s nothing there,” said Richard Briffault, a professor and election law expert at Columbia Law School. “It’s quite impressive.”
This content was originally published in Supreme Court allows Virginia to remove “non-citizens” from voter registrations on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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