Virginia voter roll purge blocked by judge

The top line

A federal judge on Friday blocked Virginia from purging its voter rolls just before Election Day to remove suspected non-citizens, as courts across the country issue a series of last-minute rulings on ballots and how which elections are held in the month before election day. as parties try to expand or limit voter access.

A polling place in Hawthorne, California, on March 5.

AFP via Getty Images

Chronology

October 25A federal judge orderly Virginia to restore more of 1,600 voters to its voter rolls after the state removed them for allegedly being non-citizens — lawyers citing evidence that many remote voters are U.S. citizens and were mistakenly removed — after the Justice Department sued Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares for allegedly violating federal law by removing voter rolls too close to the election.

October 23Supreme Court of Pennsylvania pent-up voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected because of flaws such as a signature or date can provisionally vote to make sure they can vote, after the RNC defended a county’s decision to stop those voters from voting if vote by mail. were rejected.

October 22Supreme Court of Georgia support blocking the judgment of a lower court new voting rules from taking effect — such as a requirement to count ballots and other provisions that Democrats have warned could delay the certification of election results — meaning that while litigation will continue, the rules will not be in place in during the general election.

October 22A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit led by the Republican National Committee in Michigan, which challenged the state’s voter rolls, claiming the number of voters was “impossibly large” and the state failed to remove voters from their rolls as required by law, with the judge ruling that the plaintiffs did not have provided sufficient evidence that there has been any wrongdoing.

October 21Judges of Michigan and North Carolina REJECTED lawsuits filed by the RNC challenging overseas voters who vote in those states even if they’ve never lived there — for example, if their parents or spouse lived there — the Michigan judge called it “an 11th-hour attempt to you would disenfranchise” them. voters.

October 18A federal judge in Nevada dismissed an RNC lawsuit challenging the state’s voter rolls — claiming, as in Michigan, that the number of voters was “impossibly large” — threw out the lawsuit a second time, ruling that the plaintiffs had not provided any “concrete specifics” of wrongdoings.

October 17A Trump-appointed judge in North Carolina knocked down a Republican lawsuit seeking to remove 225,000 voters from the state’s voter rolls, citing fraud, with the judge ruling that removing those voters would move the state “away from a democratic form of government.”

October 16Nebraska Supreme Court pent-up convicted felons can vote in the state after serving their sentences, nullifying the state’s effort to prevent them from voting because Nebraska could become pivot to determine which presidential candidate wins the Electoral College.

October 16A federal judge blocked an Alabama program that removed voters from voter rolls — claiming it would help prevent noncitizens from voting — after the Justice Department sued to stop the program because it was too close to the election.

October 16A lower Georgia state judge blocked the new electoral rules in Georgia, which could have delayed voter certification after Democrats argued new state election board rules could cause “chaos” in November.

October 15Ohio Supreme Court support restrictions on ballot boxes after the state passed new limitations saying that people who deliver ballots to voters with disabilities must go to an election office instead of leaving the ballot in a box.

October 15A state judge in Georgia has issued a ruling that says state election workers must certify election results in their county — regardless of whether they believe the ballots were fraudulent — after an official who has refused to certify the results in the past asked for clarification, and more than a dozen local officials have voted against certification in recent years.

October 12A federal judge REJECTED a conservative effort to require Arizona to confirm voters’ citizenship before the election.

October 7Supreme Court of Pennsylvania he refused handle two voting cases after Democrats challenged counties tossing out ballots with incorrect or missing data and Republicans objected to county officials allowing voters to correct problems with mail-in ballots, which should not be allowed under state law.

What to watch

There are many outstanding cases that must be decided by Election Day, with Marc Elias, a Democratic-aligned voting rights attorney, Report As of Sunday, 191 cases are pending in 39 states. The RNC has filed numerous lawsuits targeting voting practices, including claiming Fulton County, Georgia, did not hire enough Republican poll workers, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, said On Friday, the state will appeal the decision on its voter rolls, including possibly to the Supreme Court. Several lawsuits are also likely to be filed and decided quickly in the two weeks before Election Day.

What we don’t know

What will happen after election day? Close election results in any battleground state could prompt a series of lawsuits over how ballots are counted and election results, as happened in 2020 when the Trump campaign launched a broad legal campaign challenging the count the votes. Battleground states are already bracing for an anticipated onslaught of post-election lawsuits, Reuters rEPORTSwith the Arizona court system ordering judges to give priority to electoral processes so that certification is not delayed. Republican and Democratic campaigns are also bracing for a crowded legal landscape, an RNC official said ABC News the party has 5,000 volunteer lawyers ready to be deployed on election day, and ABC cited an internal memo from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign as saying it is “the most prepared campaign in history for what we’re facing” in terms of litigation.

Chief Critic

Democrats have sharply criticized Republicans for the rash of lawsuits they filed before Election Day and are likely to continue to file, arguing the GOP is trying to sow doubt in the election results before they even come in. “We see. a record number of lawsuits filed before the election — almost every day — in an apparently coordinated effort to use the legitimacy of the courts to lay the groundwork for discrediting an unfavorable outcome,” Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, told ABC News “The lawsuits aren’t about getting legal help, they’re about spreading conspiracy theories the vote of non-citizens or postal ballotseven though the evidence showed that electoral fraud is extremely rare and there is no evidence of any widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Key background

Republicans have stepped up legal challenges and tightened voting rules since the 2020 election. Trump and his allies filed at least 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 vote count as the then-president made baseless allegations of fraud and Republicans used Trump’s fraud allegations as the basis for their litigation challenging the voting rules. GOP-led states also pointed to Trump’s baseless claims of vindication the promulgation their own stricter voting restrictions ahead of the 2024 election, which Democrats then challenged in court. RNC announced in April, he intended to make his litigation efforts a key part of his general election strategy, launching a broad “election integrity” effort with 100,000 staff and volunteers. Chief Counsel Charlie Spies said in a statement that “the RNC’s legal team will work tirelessly to ensure that election officials follow the rules” and “will aggressively take them to court if they don’t.”