The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order on Wednesday that will allow Virginia to remove more than 1,600 people from its voter rolls, giving Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin a win just days out from the election.
Youngkin’s program seeks to remove names suspected of being ineligible to vote due to their citizenship status. Illegal noncitizen voting rarely happens in U.S. elections, but Republicans have made it a central issue in their campaigning. Voting rights advocates were quick to push back, citing voter disenfranchisement and arguing that citizens who are eligible to vote were included in the purge.
The case moved quickly up to the Supreme Court, after lower courts ruled the voter purges violated a provision of the National Voter Registration Act that prohibits changes to voter rolls within 90 days of an election — the Youngkin administration issued its order on Aug. 7, exactly 90 days out from Election Day.