A federal judge is set to rule Friday on a request to shut down Governor Glenn Youngkin's controversial voter purge program.
One piece of evidence stands out to voter rights advocates who are worried that a voter purge program might be canceling the voter registration of legitimate voters – 75 voters were kicked off the rolls for allegedly being non-citizens. Those people proved their citizenship, were restored to the rolls and then kicked off again. Monica Sarmiento at the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights says this voter purge program is dangerous and misguided.
"We've been telling people, ‘OK, so you've been purged from the voter rolls. Re-register to vote,’" Sarmiento says. "We hope that there would be some sort of validation there if they were able to go ahead and not only re-register but also show proof of citizenship. But that was not enough to suffice the state to purging them from the voter rolls."
Charles Cooper represented the Commonwealth of Virginia, which argued that the judge needs to balance harms. He acknowledges the possibility that some valid voters might accidentally be purged. But, he adds that the judge also needs to consider the possibility that the votes of valid voters might be canceled out by non-citizens.
"This process is as well tailored as possible to ensure that those kinds of things don't happen and that only non-citizens are removed," Cooper says.
The Department of Justice and several advocacy groups are asking the judge to shut down the program and restore the registration of voters who have been purged since the program started in August.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
