Virginia’s Controversial Election Year Voter Roll Purge Upheld by Supreme Court

Protesters on the steps of the Supreme Court in 2018 after a disputed Ohio voter purge was upheld. Source: Jacquelyn Martin/AP via NPR

In late October, the Supreme Court allowed 1,600 people to be purged from Virginia voter rolls prior to the 2024 election. Following an Aug. 7 executive order from Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin (who cited concerns of election security), a lower District Court judge ruled that the purge came too close to the election and was in violation of federal law. The Supreme Court granted Virginia’s emergency request to resume the voter roll purge in a 6-3 ruling. 

This decision came at a time when misinformation and allegations of widespread non-citizen voter fraud haunted the electoral process. President-elect Trump spouted baseless claims of non-citizens voting. House Republicans attempted to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act earlier this year. The SAVE Act would require voters to display both a birth certificate and a form of current identification with the same name on both if they lacked proof of citizenship with their married name and US birthplace listed. North Carolina voters just approved an amendment that modifies the state constitution’s language on who is eligible to vote to remove the word “naturalized.”

Election denial groups like The Election Integrity Network and True the Vote have vehemently advocated for voter roll purges, again citing widespread voter fraud. However, purges have resulted in the removal of eligible citizens from voter rolls. A naturalized citizen in Stafford, Virginia, was purged. He has been voting in American elections for decades. Despite warnings that Virginia’s voter purge was not narrow enough to catch only noncitizens, the state pushed on. Disturbingly, many citizens did not know they were removed until they were contacted by advocacy groups or news outlets. Many likely had time to re-register, but errors may have caused some to miss the absentee ballot request deadline. 

Alabama attempted to conduct a similar purge this year. However, a federal judge blocked this action temporarily. According to the National Voter Registration Act, states must not conduct some forms of voter list maintenance during the “quiet period” or the 90 days before a federal election. The federal judge in the Alabama case cited this deadline in pausing the purge. Governor Youngkin of Virginia issued his executive order on the day the quiet period began. In early October, District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ruled that the purge was illegal due to its proximity to the election period. An appeals court affirmed the lower court’s ruling a few weeks later. On Oct. 30, after Virginia filed an emergency appeal, the Supreme Court allowed the purge to proceed. The Department of Justice and the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices criticized the purge. As is common with emergency appeals, no reasoning was handed down from the court. 

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute that a controversial Ohio voter roll purge could proceed. The case concerned voters being kicked off of rolls if they had not voted in two years. Still, such action seems to indicate the Supreme Court’s record on voter purges. 

Immigrants’ rights organizations and civil rights groups have criticized voter purges like in Virginia for disproportionately affecting Black and Brown voters. Voter roll purges have become increasingly frequent in recent years, with 19 million voters removed between 2020 and 2022 in a 21% increase from 2014 to 2016. In Virginia, lawyers sifted furiously through the list of purged voters to try to determine the citizenship status of each person. Fears abound that states will purge eligible voters due to unsupported data and a lack of investigation. 

Governor Youngkin called the Virginia purge a “victory for common sense and election fairness.” If the Supreme Court continues to allow similar purges, Americans may experience a new interpretation of their rights under the National Voter Registration Act. With anti-immigrant sentiment rising in the US, it is possible that the 2026 midterms will bring another round of hotly contested voter roll purges. American citizens may have to take a more active role in ensuring they are registered every time an election rolls around.