Supreme Court Allows Virginia to Remove Noncitizens From Voter Rolls

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Virginia argued that a lower court misinterpreted a federal voting law.

The Supreme Court voted 6–3 on Oct. 30 to allow Virginia officials to remove suspected noncitizens from the voter rolls.

The court did not provide reasons for its emergency order but Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, indicating they would not have granted the order. The application in the case known as Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights was filed with the court on Oct. 28.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found unanimously on Oct. 27 that taking the names off the voter rolls within 90 days of an approaching federal election appears to violate the National Voter Registration Act.

Federal elections are scheduled for Nov. 5. The Supreme Court previously held in Purcell v. Gonzalez (2006) that courts should not change rules close to an election because doing so creates a risk of causing confusion.

Virginia countered that the legal provision is not relevant because the names being removed are not those of actual U.S. voters.

But “that argument violates basic principles of statutory construction by focusing on a differently worded statutory provision that is not at issue here and proposing a strained reading of the Quiet Period Provision to avoid rendering that other provision absurd or unconstitutional,” the Fourth Circuit said.

Virginia had not demonstrated its appeal was likely to succeed or that it would suffer irreparable harm should the appeal be denied, the circuit court said as it affirmed an Oct. 25 ruling by U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles.

Giles wrote that Virginia was still free to cancel the voter registration of noncitizens individually or to investigate “noncitizens who register to vote or who vote in Virginia’s election.” The ruling applies only to Virginia’s “systematic” effort to remove noncitizens that began after Aug. 7, she added.

In the application, Virginia said it objected to the district court decision because “less than two weeks before the 2024 Presidential Election, and more than a month into early voting, the district court … ordered Applicants, Virginia and its election officials, to place over 1,600 self-identified noncitizens back onto Virginia’s voter rolls, in violation of Virginia law and common sense.”

Virginia said the Supreme Court should stay the district court ruling because it “is based on a misinterpretation of the [National Voter Registration Act], which does not prohibit Virginia from removing noncitizens from its voter rolls.”

The ruling would also “impose significant cost, confusion, and hardship upon Virginia, creating a massive influx of work for its registrars in the critical week before the election, and likely confusing noncitizens into believing that they are eligible to vote.”