As Republicans warn of illegal voting, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has found himself at the center of the fight for election security. The Department of Justice has called removing noncitizens “tampering” voter rolls.

From WORLD. An order that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued over the summer has turned into an October slugfest with the federal government over election security.

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Youngkin, a Republican, signed Executive Order 35 on Aug. 7. Along with codifying the use of paper ballots in Virginia elections, the order instructed election officials to make daily updates to voter rolls and remove any noncitizens. The directive came at the start of this year’s “quiet period,” a time during which federal law prohibits any systematic changes to voter rolls to prevent confusion before an election.

This past weekend, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Virginia, the state election board, and the commissioner of elections for tampering with voter rolls. Voting rights groups have filed additional lawsuits alleging the governor’s actions discriminate against migrants. The DOJ alleges that Virginia has wrongfully canceled the registrations of lawful voters in violation of the quiet period.

The National Voter Registration Act, nicknamed the “motor voter law,” mandates that all states provide driver’s license applicants an option to register to vote. It also requires that each state maintain voter rolls and keep them accurate, though states have flexibility in how they do this. During the 90-day quiet period before an election, officials may remove individuals from the rolls, such as if a voter dies, but systemwide purges are not allowed. …

In Virginia, the DMV shares data regularly with the state election system, called ELECT. If a resident checks the “no” box for citizenship on a DMV form, that information is shared with ELECT, but the DMV is not responsible for verifying citizenship. Then ELECT compares the names of purported noncitizens to see if they are on the voter rolls. If a name is flagged for suspected noncitizenship, it is sent to a local registrar.

According to Youngkin, more than 6,000 people who checked the “no” box for citizenship were taken off the rolls between January 2022 and July 2024. In August, he implemented a new daily program that would share DMV data with ELECT. The election board then mails a notice of intent to cancel unless affected voters provide proof of citizenship within 14 days. …

In a statement obtained by WORLD, Richard Cullen, an attorney for Youngkin, argues that the governor’s action cleans up the rolls and complies with federal requirements.

“Federal law does not prohibit the removal of noncitizens from the voting rolls,” the memo said. “The 90-day ‘quiet period’ under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) is not relevant to this process since Virginia conducts an individualized—not systematic—review per Virginia law in order to correct registration records.” …

Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli now leads the Election Transparency Initiative, a right-leaning nonprofit. … He found the DOJ’s timing to be suspicious, since Youngkin originally issued the order in August. …

Cuccinelli also argued that removing noncitizens does not violate the quiet period because it falls under the exceptions to the rule. Section 8 of the NVRA allows removals within 90 days at the voter’s request or because of diagnosed mental incapacity, a felony conviction, death, or a change of residence.

“People who were never qualified to be on the voter rolls in the first place can always be removed,” Cuccinelli said. …

Chambers, the University of Richmond law professor, says the politicization runs the other way. Youngkin has said he is implementing a 2006 law that then–Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, passed to maintain the voter rolls. Chambers argued Youngkin has been in office for two years and could have passed the executive order earlier.

“This is not something that the Youngkin administration didn’t know about more than 90 days before the election,” Chambers said. “I think part of what’s going on is that they are pushing this through as a political notion to foreground the concept that there’s a substantial number of people on the voter rolls who shouldn’t be there. And as a consequence, it’s not clear that you can really be sure that the election was on the up and up.” …

The Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights (VACIR) filed a separate lawsuit over removing suspected noncitizens from the rolls on Oct. 8. The organization, along with the state’s League of Women Voters chapter, accused the Virginia Board of Elections and Attorney General Jason Miyares of discriminating against migrants. The VACIR lawsuit alleges that the DMV data Youngkin has ordered to be used could be out of date, especially in the cases of naturalized citizens who had not yet taken the oath when they selected a “noncitizen” box on a DMV form.

“The careless purging of voters without proper fact checking or oversight is a direct assault of our American democracy,” VACIR chair Mohamed Gula said in a statement. …

Early voting began in Virginia on Sept. 20, and early registration to vote ended on Tuesday. However, Virginia also allows eligible voters to register at the polls on Election Day.

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(Excerpt from WORLD. Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Glenn Youngkin, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124428308)