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Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin attends the preservation launch ceremony for the Williamsburg Bray School building, the oldest Black school in America.Shutterstock/Michael Scott Milner

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halted a lower court ruling that would have forced Virginia to keep more than a thousand invalid names on its voter rolls for the 2024 presidential election, giving the state more time to respond to the Biden administration’s legal challenge.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered Virginia to restore the voter registration of approximately 1,600 names that had been identified in August as probable non-citizens and warned that they would not be able to vote unless they submitted proof of citizenship.

The Biden administration and a number of immigration groups had argued that the move violated a provision of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) prohibiting “systematic” voter roll maintenance within 90 days of a national election. Giles agreed, prompting Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to appeal, noting that “(a)lmost all these individuals had previously presented immigration documents confirming their noncitizen status, a fact recently verified by federal authorities.”

On Wednesday, however, the nation’s highest court issued a 6-3 order blocking Giles’s order while the legal arguments continue, SCOTUSblog reported. None of the justices elaborated on their reasoning.

Attorneys for the state had argued that NVRA was never intended to prevent the removal of non-citizens who were never legitimate voters, that its review was an “individualized process” rather than “systematic,” and that the order had violated judicial precedent against courts changing election rules shortly before an election.

“We are pleased by the Supreme Court’s order today. This is a victory for commonsense and election fairness,” Youngkin responded, adding:

I am grateful for the work of Attorney General Jason Miyares on this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections. Virginians also know that we have paper ballots, counting machines not connected to the internet, a strong chain of custody process, signature verification, monitored and secured drop boxes, and a ‘triple check’ vote counting process to tabulate results. Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically motivated interference.

“This ruling is a win for election integrity and the rule of law. While I am gratified the Court moved so quickly, I remain deeply concerned and alarmed that the Biden-Harris administration chose to execute this maneuver just 25 days before an election,” Miyares added. “Today’s ruling is a reaffirmation of our commitment to election integrity, and I look forward to ensuring that our electoral process remains secure for all Virginians.”

Election integrity has long been an issue in American politics, but significantly intensified when the 2020 presidential election was marked by widespread election irregularities and numerous allegations that the election had been rigged for Joe Biden against Donald Trump, bolstered by the dramatic expansion of voting by mail in the wake of COVID-19. 

Twenty-eight states relaxed their mail ballot rules in 2020, contributing to a 17-million vote increase from 2016. In addition to mail ballots generally being less secure than in-person votes, four of those states – Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – changed their rules without legislative consent. Those four alone comprised 56 of Biden’s electoral votes, more than enough to decide the victor.

At the same time, attempts to prove the election had been stolen were undermined by judges who dismissed some claims on process issues without ever considering their merits as well as flawed legal briefs by election challengers and dramatic examples of “smoking guns” that never panned out. Nevertheless, the controversy did lead to 14 states tightening their election rules over the following years.

This year’s presidential race is extremely close, with the lead Vice President Kamala Harris enjoyed since replacing Biden as the Democrat nominee shrinking as numerous observers find trends in Trump’s direction. Trump now narrowly leads by 0.4 percent RealClearPolitics’ national popular vote polling average, and Harris leads by roughly two points according to RaceToTheWH. Margins remain even closer in the swing states that will decide the Electoral College outcome.

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