|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday reversed a lower court decision to block the state of Virginia from purging 1,600 voters from its rolls.
The Court was split along political lines, with the three liberal justices dissenting. None of the justices commented on their reasoning for supporting or opposing the ruling.
Alabama is one of 25 states that signed on to a brief supporting Virginia, arguing that the court should not be allowed to intervene to prevent the state from removing voters it believes to be noncitizens.
“Today, the United States Supreme Court restored common sense to the issue of whether non-citizens should be able to register and/or vote in our elections,” Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen said in a statement Wednesday. “Only US citizens are legally allowed to register to vote and cast a vote. Alabama joined the State of Kansas along with 24 other states in filing a brief in support of the Virginia case and I am proud to see this positive development. Today’s ruling is a victory for the U.S. Constitution.”
Alabama attempted to purge twice as many voters as Virginia, marking 3,251 names for removal on the basis that the individuals had at one point been issued noncitizen identification numbers. Allen admitted the program could sweep up eligible voters who had since been naturalized.
Plaintiffs brought evidence in the suit that the program indeed had at least a 60 percent error rate with potentially 2,000 of the targeted citizens being eligible to vote.
Voting rights group say the Virginia decision creates election confusion by bolstering conspiracy theories about widespread voting by undocumented immigrants.
“By issuing a stay in the Virginia mass voter challenge case, the Supreme Court has injected confusion into the election,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice. “This stay will cause eligible Virginia citizens to be purged from voter rolls just before the election — all in service of a conspiracy theory.”
While Alabama officials celebrated the decision, it does not immediately affect Alabama’s case. Allen has complied with the federal court’s order to allow the targeted voters to cast ballots in the upcoming election. It remains illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
The judge issued a preliminary injunction against Alabama’s program solely because it was launched within a 90-day quiet period explicitly stated in federal law that prevents voter roll changes too close to election day. The judge has not ruled on the legitimacy of the program itself.
State Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, suggested Monday at a town hall that the state should flout the federal court decision as a “sovereign state” and purge the voters anyway.
The election is now just six days away, on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
