WASHINGTON, DC – Federal law allows Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to stop noncitizen voting by removing noncitizens from Virginia voter rolls, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered on Wednesday in a massive win for President Donald Trump, Republicans, and election integrity supporters.
Youngkin removed 6,303 noncitizens from the voter rolls in Virginia between January 2022 when he took office and July 2024, pursuant to a state law in place since 2006. Then in August, Youngkin issued an executive order (EO) directing election officials to continue this program in advance of November’s election.
Under Youngkin’s EO, if a person getting a driver’s license checked a box on the license application saying that the person is not a U.S. citizen, but somehow that person eventually ended up on the voter rolls anyway – almost certainly by later registering to vote – election officials would send that person a letter informing them that it is illegal for noncitizens to vote, and that if the person did not show proof of citizenship to election officials within 14 days of receiving the letter, their names will be removed from Virginia’s voter rolls.
In addition to the initial 6,300, another 1,600 persons have been removed from voter lists in the Old Dominion pursuant to Youngkin’s EO.
The Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Youngkin, claiming that the 90-day “quiet period” in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA, or “Motor Voter”) does not allow these removals for three months prior to Election Day. DOJ argued that perhaps all of these noncitizens had since become U.S. citizens or had checked the wrong box when they told the government they were not citizens.
Youngkin and Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) fought back, explaining that while NVRA does not allow “systematic” removals during the 90-day window before an election, these 1,600 were instead individualized removals on a case-by-case basis because these individuals voters had individually declared they were not citizens.
The case went to a liberal federal trial judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, who ruled in favor of Biden and Harris and ordered those noncitizens restored to the voter rolls by Election Day. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit – one of the most liberal appellate courts in the nation – affirmed that judgment, though acknowledging that part of the trial judge’s order was unworkable.
Youngkin applied to the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a stay that would block the lower court’s order, directed to Chief Justice John Roberts as the justice who supervises the Fourth Circuit. President Trump supported Youngkin’s fight, and the Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a brief supporting Youngkin. Roberts received legal briefs from both sides and circulated them to his colleagues Tuesday night.
RELATED — Trump: Non-Citizens Being on Virginia Voter Rolls Is “Election Interference”
On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court issued the stay by a 6-3 vote, upholding Youngkin’s EO and keeping the noncitizens off the voter rolls in Virginia. This stay will remain in place while the Fourth Circuit goes through the full appeals process in the months ahead, after which the losing side can ask the Supreme Court to hear the case and issue a formal opinion on the legal argument.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Kentanji Brown Jackson voted to deny the stay.
“This is a spectacular victory for election integrity and the rule of law,” Ambassador Ken Blackwell, who is chairman of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute, told Breitbart News in an exclusive reaction to the ruling. “Americans overwhelmingly support the federal law that forbids noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and I applaud both the Supreme Court for upholding the law here and Governor Youngkin for cleaning up Virginia’s voter rolls.”
The case is Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, and the application for a stay is 24A407 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Breitbart News senior legal contributor Ken Klukowski is a lawyer who served in the White House and Justice Department. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @kenklukowski.