Supreme Court OKs Virginia Voter-Roll Purge

In a 6–3 decision handed down Wednesday, the Supreme Court of the United States granted a stay, pending appeal, of the federal district court ruling that blocked the state of Virginia from removing from its voter rolls some 1,600 people who had identified themselves as non-citizen residents. In a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters of Virginia and the U.S. Justice Department, the district court judge Patricia Liles previously ruled that the action violated the National Voter Registration Act, which forbids states from systematically removing voters from their rolls within 90 days of federal elections.

The decision split along ideological lines, with the three liberal justices, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson, dissenting.

The stay was welcomed by the governor of Virginia, Glenn Younkin:

It comes as a triumph for Republicans in Virginia and elsewhere, who have made increasing election security and preventing potential voter fraud a priority. The Justice Department, however, argued that the purge wrongly disenfranchised U.S. citizens.