WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court today temporarily stayed the decision of a lower court and ruled that Virginia does not have to restore aliens to its voter rolls, in a rebuke to the Biden administration’s efforts to stop Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin from cleaning up voter rolls.  

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of Heritage’s Election Law Reform Initiative, senior legal fellow, and former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, made the following statement:  

“This is a significant victory for election integrity. The Department of Justice filed this lawsuit against Virginia that misinterprets a provision of the National Voter Registration Act. 

“The DOJ cited a 90-day, pre-election deadline in the NVRA for systematic removal of individuals who have moved. But that doesn’t apply to non-citizens who never should have been eligible to register in the first place and are violating federal criminal law by registering to vote.  

“States should take this action from the Supreme Court as confirmation that they can clean up their voter rolls. It should also signal to DOJ that they need to investigate and prosecute these aliens, not try to force Virginia or any other state to keep them registered in voter rolls in violation of federal law.” 

For more background on this issue, read “The National Voter Registration Act Does Not Prevent States from Removing Aliens from Voter Registration Rolls at Any Time.”