Voters wanting to cast an early vote line up outside the Elena Bozeman Government Center for a polling station to open in Arlington, Virginia, on September 20, 2024.Â
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A federal judge on Friday blocked Virginia from purging its voter rolls of alleged non-citizens and ordered the state to reinstate more than 1,600 people who had already been bounced from those voter lists.
Judge Patricia Giles in her ruling agreed with arguments by the Department of Justice, which said the purge ordered by Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Aug. 7 was issued too close to Election Day.
The state immediately vowed to appeal the ruling, which came less than two weeks before Election Day.
“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 in a statement on Giles’ ruling.
“Almost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities,” the governor said.
“Virginia will immediately petition the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and, if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court, for an emergency stay of the injunction,” Youngkin said.
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