The Supreme Court grants Virginia’s appeal to purge voter rolls before Election Day

The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted Virginia’s emergency request to revive the Republican administration. Glenn Youngkin‘s systematic purge of voter rolls prior to Election Day.

The court’s three Democratic appointees disagreed the order. The Republican-appointed majority did not explain its reasoning, and neither did the dissenters, which is not unusual in emergency proceedings.

The Republican victory on the Roberts Court follows Tuesday’s nearly unanimous victory rejection of Former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempt to get rid of ballots in battleground states Wisconsin and Michigan, which he wanted to do to help Republican Donald Trump’s campaign.

The judges are also expected to rule on one soon emergency offer of Republicans to block provisional ballots in Pennsylvania. This will result in the upcoming decision in the case swing states could provide a fuller picture of how the court handles lawsuits in this election, which could be a close contest between Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Friday by a federal judge had blocked Virginia’s program, citing the National Voter Registration Act. That federal law prohibits states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election. Virginia argued before the judges that the law does not apply to the removal of non-citizens and that the removal process is individualized and not systematic.

Resists the emergency bid alongside voting rights groupsthe federal government said that Virginia has “no legitimate interest in continuing practices that clearly violate federal law.” The government said government officials “pervasively allege harm that they have failed to prove. … Notably, applicants have provided no reason to believe that noncitizens voted in the past Virginia elections, or that some are likely to do so in upcoming elections.”

In ruling against the state, U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said that the program has curtailed the rights of eligible voters to cast their ballots, citing evidence showing that the registration of eligible citizens has been canceled. The Joe Biden appointee said that “restoring the voting rights of all eligible voters affected by this program far outweighs the burden on the Defendants (Virginia) of restoring those names to the rolls.”

She added that officials can still remove ineligible registrants through individualized examination.

On Sunday, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals it said was also “unconvinced” by the state’s argument that it did not violate the federal voter registration law. “Here, the challenged program does not require communication with or specific investigation of a specific individual,” a unanimous appeals court panel said in the order that prompted Supreme Court review. “Rather, electronically recording a person’s name on a list, compared to other agencies’ databases, is sufficient to be removed from the voter rolls.”

The panel of Democratic appointees said the state’s argument that the law does not apply to noncitizens “violates basic principles of statutory construction by focusing on a differently worded statutory provision not at issue here and to propose a strained reading of the Silent Period provision to avoid making that other provision absurd or unconstitutional. That is not how courts interpret laws.”

Wednesday’s Supreme Court order pauses the judge’s ruling pending further litigation at the Court of Appeal and possibly the Supreme Court.

In the 2020 election, Trump lost to Biden, the Democrat Virginia wonwhere early voting is already taking place this year, with about half a million votes.

While this appeal only concerned Virginia, the state was supported to the Supreme Court Republican interests and states, including a short one led by the Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who used to be held in contempt and punished for defying court orders during voting rights cases.

Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal newsletter for expert analysis of the week’s top legal stories, including Supreme Court updates and developments in Donald Trump’s lawsuits.