Biden Suing VA For Purging Non-Citizens From Voting Rolls Even Though DOJ Approved The Law

 The U.S. Department of Justice explicitly approved a Virginia law designed to prevent noncitizens from being added to voter rolls. Now the Biden-Harris DOJ is suing the state for enforcing it, The Daily Wire has exclusively learned.

The law has been in force since 2007 and was signed by then-governor Tim Kaine, who is now a Democrat senator. On October 25, 2006, Virginia’s then-Senior Assistant Attorney General J. Jasen Eige wrote to the federal DOJ, “I submit for your approval pursuant to the Voting Rights Act… changes to the Driver’s License Process in the Commonwealth of Virginia by requiring a declaration of citizenship before a customer is offered the opportunity to register to vote.”

In December, John Tanner, then-chief of the DOJ’s Voting Section, replied, “The Attorney General does not interpose any objection to the specified change.” The letter noted that it did not preclude the possibility of litigation in the future.

Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin told The Daily Wire on Saturday, “We are upholding the Constitution and Virginia law signed 18 years ago by then-governor Tim Kaine. And we now know that the Virginia law was reviewed and expressly approved by the DOJ civil rights division. Now, after being applied for 18 years by both Democrat and Republican governors, with just 25 days before the presidential election, the Biden-Harris DOJ sues Virginia.”

 

“Ensuring Virginia’s voter rolls do not include non-citizens is constitutional, it’s the law in Virginia and it’s common sense,” he added. “Non-citizens shouldn’t be on the voter rolls.”

In September, Democrats threatened to shut down the federal government rather than pass a spending bill that included the SAVE Act, which would require voters to prove their citizenship. The Biden-Harris administration explained that it “strongly opposes” the bill because “[it] is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in Federal elections” and “[states] already have effective safeguards in place to verify voters’ eligibility and maintain the accuracy of voter rolls.”

The administration then began blocking states from enforcing those existing laws. In addition to suing Virginia, it sued Alabama for a similar effort.

A 2006 memo from Virginia’s Department of Motor Vehicles summarized the new process in which people applying for driver’s licenses would be asked if they are a citizen and, if they said yes, given the opportunity to register to vote. If they said no, that would be transmitted to the state elections board so it could ensure that the person did not unlawfully attempt to register separately.

The U.S. Department of Justice “indicated no concerns with the legislation as written and referred to guidance it provided for a similar process in Maryland,” as well as noting that “the Federal Code explicitly makes it a crime for a non-citizen to vote, or attempt to vote,” the memo said.

This August, Youngkin signed an executive order instructing the Department of Elections to remove “non-citizens who may have purposefully or accidentally registered to vote.” The order said that between January 2022 and July 2024, it identified and removed 6,300 people who were on the rolls despite being identified as non-citizens.

Virginia also entered into data-sharing agreements with other states and identified 79,867 deceased voters and identified registered voters who had moved out of state.

Youngkin won his 2021 race by 63,000 votes, meaning ineligible voters on the voter rolls could conceivably affect the 2024 presidential race, if they actually voted.

But on October 11, the Biden-Harris DOJ announced that its civil rights division was suing the state for removing names from the voter rolls “too close to the Nov. 5 general election.”

It said federal law creates a “Quiet Period” that requires states to “complete systematic programs aimed at removing the names of ineligible voters from voter registration lists no later than 90 days before federal elections.” Youngkin’s executive order came exactly 90 days before election day and said it would perform daily sweeps of the data moving forward, and required people who registered to vote despite being a noncitizen to be referred for prosecution.

Youngkin said, “Virginia’s election will be secure and fair, and I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.”

The DOJ’s lawsuit acknowledges that Youngkin’s plan was based on people explicitly telling the DMV that they were not citizens, and that it did not remove then from the rolls unless they failed to provide evidence that it was a mistake within 14 days.

The suit said that the notice sent to voters reads: “[w]e have received information that you indicated on a recent DMV application that you are not a citizen of the United States. If the information provided was correct, you are not eligible to vote. If the information is incorrect and you are a citizen of the United States, please complete the Affirmation of Citizenship form and return it using the enclosed envelope. If you do not respond within 14 days, you will be removed from the list of registered voters.”

Nonetheless, it said the process was a burden that could lead to people who are actually citizens having their registration cancelled.

In August, Fairfax County, for example, removed 28 registered voters who apparently identified themselves as noncitizens and did not respond to a mailer asking them to explain the discrepancy.