Virginia can cancel more than 1,600 voter registrations the state claims are held by noncitizens in advance of next week’s election, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
The emergency decision marks a loss for the Biden administration, which convinced lower courts to reinstate the registrations because the removals took place too close to the election.
The court’s three liberals – Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — publicly dissented.
State officials claim the list comprises noncitizens, but a district judge found that some were eligible voters, and Virginia officials hadn’t shown the others “were, in fact, noncitizens.”
Though research indicates it is a rare occurrence, Republicans have drawn attention to noncitizen voting in a series of lawsuits this election cycle. Virginia was backed at the high court by all the nation’s 26 other Republican state attorneys general, the Republican National Committee and multiple conservative groups.
