Virginia residents vote (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
A federal judge on Friday ordered Virginia to reinstate 1,600 noncitizen voter registrations that Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R.) removed this year in an effort to disqualify illegal noncitizens from voting in the November election.
U.S. district judge Patricia Giles, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, granted the Department of Justice's request for an injunction against the state, citing evidence submitted in court that some individuals removed from the rolls were eligible voters, the Associated Press reported.
Youngkin, however, argued against the judge’s ruling, saying the individuals who were removed "self-identified themselves as noncitizens."
"Let’s be clear about what just happened: only eleven days before a Presidential election, a federal judge ordered Virginia to reinstate over 1,500 individuals—who self-identified themselves as noncitizens—back onto the voter rolls," Youngkin said. "Almost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities."
Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares, also condemned the judge’s order.
"It should never be illegal to remove an illegal voter," he said. "Yet, today a Court—urged by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice—ordered Virginia to put the names of noncitizens back on the voter rolls, mere days before a presidential election," he wrote in a statement.
Miyares added that the Biden-Harris administration was working to "weaponize the legal system against the enemies of so-called progress," calling the case "bullying, pure and simple."
Youngkin and Miyares both said Virginia plans to appeal the ruling and take the case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
Youngkin announced on Aug. 7 that election officials had removed 6,303 noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls since January 2022.
The DOJ then sued the state earlier this month for removing some of those voters from rolls "too close to the Nov. 5 general election," which it said violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
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