This is the latest in a string of favors this Court has done for the Republican Party.
The Supreme Court issued a surprising order on Wednesday morning that allows Virginia’s Republican governor to openly defy a federal voting rights law. Though the Court didn’t announce how every justice voted in Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, only its three Democrats publicly dissented.
The GOP-controlled Court’s order is surprising because the federal law at issue in Beals, known as the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), is so clearly written. It prohibits states from “systematically” removing “the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters” within 90 days of a primary, or general election for federal offices. Virginia began a purge of about 1,600 voters, who its top Republican officials claim are noncitizens, exactly 90 days before the upcoming election. (A federal court later determined that some of the purged voters were, in fact, citizens.)SCOTUS, Explained
Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser.
Realistically, this purge is unlikely to change the result of any races this election. Virginia has consistently voted for Democrats at the presidential level since 2008, and it’s not even clear how many of the people caught in this purge are lawful voters who intended to cast a ballot. But the Court’s decision to back the purge could have tremendous national implications because it suggests that the justices will allow states to ignore the NVRA.
Previously, two lower federal courts ordered Virginia to abandon the purge, at least until after the election, and to restore the purged names to the state’s voter rolls. Wednesday’s order does not explain why the justices decided to reinstate this purge.
One reason why the case is worrisome, however, is that Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares made several arguments in defense of the purge that would effectively neutralize the NVRA’s 90-day pause on voter purges altogether.
Because the Supreme Court did not explain its order in Beals, it is impossible to know whether a majority of the justices accepted Miyares’s most aggressive arguments.
