Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) will defend Virginia’s actions to “protect the casting of legal ballots” after the Department of Justice said it would sue the state for removing thousands of noncitizens from voter registration rolls “too close” to Election Day.
The DOJ announced the lawsuit Thursday, arguing that Virginia state election officials’ move to clean up voter lists near the beginning of August came “too close to the Nov. 5 general election” and violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.
“By cancelling voter registrations within 90 days of Election Day, Virginia places qualified voters in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a press release.
Youngkin denounced the DOJ for waiting until Friday to bring the lawsuit against Virginia and said the state would act to “defend these commonsense steps.”
“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls,” Youngkin declared in a statement.
With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls.
— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) October 11, 2024
Virginians – and Americans – will…
He added that “Virginians — and Americans — will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy.”
The DOJ’s lawsuit against Virginia comes after Youngkin announced on Aug. 7 that election officials had removed 6,303 noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls since Jan. 2022.
The Republican governor declared his Executive Order 35 would “protect legal voters and accurate counts” through “stringent ballot security, complete and thorough counting machine testing,” and “best-in-the-nation voter list maintenance.”
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“This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue. It’s an American and Virginian issue,” Youngkin said. “Every legal vote deserves to be counted without being watered down by illegal votes or inaccurate machines.”
In Youngkin’s statement responding to the DOJ’s lawsuit against his executive order on Friday, the governor said he would work with Republican state Attorney General Jason Miyares to “defend these commonsense steps, that we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us.”