On Tuesday, Donald Trump said (in response to a totally unrelated question) that he “hadn’t gotten over” the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Virginia for, what Trump claimed was merely “clean[ing] up its voter rolls.”

As part of Republicans’ anti-immigrant campaign efforts, they have repeatedly tried to focus attention on largely unfounded allegations about non-citizens voting — for whom voting in federal elections is already illegal. While most efforts at focusing on this have been performative, Republican officials in both Alabama and Virginia have implemented systematic voter purges that they claim are aimed are stopping non-citizens from voting.

Trump’s comments about DOJ’s lawsuit, as I noted at the time, completely ignored the reason for the lawsuit: Virginia’s timing.

Under a provision in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), states can't carry out systematic voter purges within 90 days of a federal election.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco, appointed to the federal court in the Northern District of Alabama by Trump, laid out succinctly just how wrong Trump was to criticize DOJ’s actions.

In issuing an injunction against Alabama’s secretary of state for his similar late purge in another DOJ lawsuit, Manasco wrote:

For decades, federal law has given states a hard deadline to complete systematic purges of ineligible persons from voter rolls: no later than ninety days before a federal election. This year, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen … blew the deadline when he announced a purge program to begin eighty-four days before the 2024 General Election ….

It’s really that simple.

What’s more, the purges in Alabama and Virginia are perfect examples that show exactly why Congress passed this provision: These purges inevitably ensnare legal voters. This is always a problem, but it’s a more significant problem in the immediate run-up to the election — where an improperly purged voter could be blocked from voting altogether.

In addition to blocking the continuation of the program in Alabama, Manasco ordered state officials to “immediately restore to active status the voter registration records of registrants inactivated as part of the Program, so long as those individuals (1) did not subsequently submit a voter removal request, or (2) are not subject to removal by reason of criminal conviction or mental incapacity (as provided by State law), or by reason of the death of the registrant.”

In addition to the Justice Department’s lawsuit in Virginia, the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and League of Women Voters of Virginia filed a lawsuit opposing the Virginia effort.

Noting that any systematic voter-purge effort would be banned so close to the election, the nonprofit groups allege in their complaint that the Virginia effort is a far cry from “a well-designed, well-intended list maintenance effort.”

Here’s how they describe the effort:

It is an illegal, discriminatory, and error-ridden program that has directed the cancelation of voter registrations of naturalized U.S. citizens and jeopardizes the rights of countless others. In a purported effort to flag potential noncitizens, Defendants’ Purge Program relies on out-of-date information provided to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and perhaps other sources, stretching back twenty years. The State knows or should know that countless individuals who obtained drivers’ licenses while legal permanent residents have become naturalized citizens, many even registering to vote during naturalization ceremonies. But Defendants make no effort to conduct any individualized analysis.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Biden appointee, is currently hearing both Virginia cases and plans to consolidate them, with a hearing set for 10:00 a.m. October 24 on the nonprofit groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction. The Justice Department, which filed its motion for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, does not believe argument is necessary — because the law is so clear — but asked to present at the hearing on October 24 if needed.

At the same time, however, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, is trying to get both cases transferred from the Alexandria Division to the Richmond Division. (The Richmond Division has three active judges; two of them are Trump appointees. Of the six total judges in the division, four are Republican appointees.)

In other words, Virginia Republicans implemented an illegal voter-purge program, are defending it in court, and are now fighting where in Virginia the lawsuits have been filed — presumably with hopes of getting a “better” judge in Richmond, despite that a Trump appointee in Alabama just explained why these late efforts are illegal. Both of those steps, meanwhile, are delaying resolution for those legal voters improperly caught up in this illegal purge.

Bad, bad, bad, bad.

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