One would think that removing noncitizens from your voting rolls would be a smart thing to do to ensure a fair election in November—but the Harris-Biden Department of Justice evidently disagrees.
They’re suing the state of Virginia on technical grounds—it’s too close to the election for such procedures, they say. However, it must be pointed out that, with less than three weeks left before the most consequential presidential election in our lifetimes, the same DOJ and their enforcer Jack Smith is busy dropping revised indictments against Donald Trump—in violation of virtually every norm that’s ever been established.
The governor of the Old Dominion State, Glenn Youngkin, was appalled:
In a statement, Youngkin pushed back on the Justice Department’s lawsuit, saying the lawsuit was “politically motivated.”
“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls – a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote,” Youngkin said.
With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls.
Virginians – and Americans – will…
— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) October 11, 2024
Virginians – and Americans – will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy.
Utah senator Mike Lee was equally incensed:
The Biden-Harris administration is engaging in election interference
They’re harassing states that are trying to make sure that noncitizens can’t vote
This is a lawless abuse of power https://t.co/mxrKQRIdpb
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) October 11, 2024
The DOJ alleges that Youngkin is violating the so-called “quiet period”:
The complaint alleges that the state Board of Elections and Virginia Commissioner of Elections Susan Beals violated the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which mandates that states must complete their maintenance program no later than 90 days before an election under a clause known as the Quiet Period Provision.
The agency alleges that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin violated the NVRA when announcing and subsequently carrying out an executive order which required the election commissioner to regularly update the state’s voter lists to remove individuals who have been “identified as noncitizens,” and had not responded to a request to verify their citizenship in 14 days.
Under Youngkin’s executive order, Virginia has removed 6,303 individuals.
“The Executive Order formalized the Program and announced that 6,303 individuals had been removed from the rolls pursuant to the same process between January 2022 and July 2024,” the complaint said.
I’m not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, and I’m not going to opine on the legal arguments in this case.
But I would ask: is this what we envisioned for the top legal department in the United States—that they would be working to prevent a state from removing non-eligible voters from the rolls, that they would be nakedly targeting a former president over political differences, that they would be hassling American citizens for their stances on abortion and parental involvement in schools? We can be forgiven for not trusting a single action that comes out of our once-vaunted institution because Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Attorney General Merrick Garland have so tarnished the reputation of the DOJ that nothing that comes out of there can be trusted at face value.
This seems like yet another attempt to rig the system, and you can understand why Glenn Youngkin and Mike Lee are so disgusted.
