Justices at the United States Supreme Court are deciding whether to consider Governor Glenn Youngkin's voter purge.
A federal judge in Alexandria is ordering Virginia to abandon what she says is an illegal purge of the list of legitimate voters. An appeals court is agreeing with the judge and so now, that leaves Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares with only one option – get the justices on the United States Supreme Court to overturn the decision.
Daniel Ortiz at the University of Virginia Law School says he expects the Supreme Court to make a decision later this week.
"The Supreme Court usually doesn't take up cases where all of the lower courts have agreed on something," adds Ortiz. "It does sometimes, typically in high stakes cases or culture war cases, things like that."
Gene Rossi is a former federal prosecutor at the Eastern District of Virginia, and he worries that the Supreme Court might fail to make a determination one way or the other as Election Day approaches.
"I think they may run out the clock. They don't want to get involved. That's my prediction," Rossi says. "But Judge Giles does have the right to say to Governor Youngkin, 'Comply with my order.' It is the law of the case."
Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles is ordering the governor to restore hundreds of eligible voters back to the rolls and send a letter to all of the people who were purged informing them that they’re back on the voter rolls. So far, that has not happened because the governor is exhausting all of his legal remedies.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
