Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks to reporters outside the Capitol near the end of the 2024 General Assembly session. (Graham Moomaw/Virginia Mercury)
Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order to remove more than 6,000 Virginians from the voter rolls has come under intense national scrutiny after the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit challenging its legality.
With just weeks until the Nov. 5 election, the suit has amplified concerns over voter disenfranchisement and the integrity of the state’s election process mirrored in other states leading up to the presidential contest.
On Fox News Sunday, Youngkin defended his move, arguing that it was based on a law signed in 2006 by then-Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat.
“To be clear, this is not a purge,” he told host Shannon Bream. “To describe this as something that’s a purge is completely inaccurate, it’s wholly consistent with the U.S. Constitution, the Virginia Constitution and Virginia law.”
On Monday, a federal judge in Alexandria ordered the Virginia Department of Elections to disclose the names of individuals removed from the state’s voter rolls by the Youngkin administration.
The ruling came in response to an earlier lawsuit from the League of Women Voters and the Virginia Coalition of Immigrant Rights, which challenged Youngkin’s Executive Order 35 signed in August, authorizing “daily” updates to Virginia’s voter rolls.
These updates involved comparing the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles’ list of individuals identified as non-citizens to the list of registered voters. Local registrars were then required to notify voters whose citizenship status was challenged, informing them that their registration would be canceled unless they confirmed their citizenship within 14 days.
The governor’s response to the DOJ lawsuit
The DOJ’s lawsuit argues that the voter removals disproportionately affected minority communities and may have wrongfully removed eligible voters without adequate notice or due process less than 90 days before a presidential election — placing Youngkin’s executive order at the center of a growing national debate about voting rights and election security. On Sunday, Youngkin sought to clarify how his administration handled the process.
“It starts with a basic premise that when someone walks into one of our DMV’s and self-identifies as a noncitizen, and then they end up on the voter rolls, either purposely or by accident, that we go through a process individualized, not systematic, an individualized process based on that person’s self-identification as a noncitizen, to give them 14 days to affirm they are a citizen and if they don’t, they come off the voter rolls,” Youngkin told Fox News’ Shannon Bream.
Last week, Youngkin also talked with CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who pointed out that the issue with the executive order wasn’t the program itself but approving it within 90 days of the election — the so-called quiet period — which the DOJ suit argues is prohibited under federal law.
“Why is it that anyone could argue that a process that removes non-citizens off of our voter rolls is anything other than common sense and constitutional?” Youngkin asked, adding that he was “frustrated” with the department’s decision to sue 25 days before the presidential election.
“They could have started it a long time ago, we would have sorted this out, because I firmly believe they are wrong. But this seems far more political than otherwise, simply because of the fact that this has been going on since 2006, according to law, and they chose 25 days before an election in Virginia in order to assert something which really is inconsistent with the process that we are doing.”
Tapper’s interview with Youngkin further caused a stir because of their heated exchange over recent comments that former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, made about the U.S. military.
During a Fox News appearance, Trump suggested deploying the National Guard or military on Election Day to prevent potential unrest, citing the threat of “the enemy from within,” which he described as “radical-left lunatics.”
Tapper asked Youngkin, “Is that something you support?” In response, the governor shifted the focus to border issues.
“What former President Trump is referring to are the individuals crossing the border who are committing crimes, bringing drugs, trafficking humans, and turning every state into a border state.”
Youngkin emphasized that, although Virginia is not a border state, it still feels the effects of “10 million people illegally crossing the border every single day.”
Tapper countered that while the problems at the border are real, that’s not what Trump was referring to. “He was talking about sick people, radical-left lunatics who should be handled by the National Guard or the military.”
Later on in that same speech, Trump said that one of “the lunatics” he addressed was U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Ca., Tapper added. “That’s who he was talking about using the National Guard and military against, radical-left lunatics, the enemy from within, people like Adam Schiff.”
In response, Youngkin said he “can’t speak” for Trump. Instead, he said he believed the CNN anchor misinterpreted the former president’s rhetoric and was “misrepresenting his thoughts.”
Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington, said that the legal fallout over Youngkin’s executive order and the subsequent debate in the national media will likely benefit the governor’s desire to remain in the public discourse.
“I think Governor Youngkin is available to the national media because he wants to keep Republicans thinking about Glenn Youngkin. With the one consecutive term limit, Youngkin’s political fortunes may be improved with greater national media visibility.”
While the courts will ultimately rule on the governor’s actions, Youngkin’s continued participation in the national discourse is a win-win, according to Farnsworth.
“If he wins, it boosts his popularity with Republicans, and if he loses, he can still gain favor with the GOP base. The worst thing for a Virginia governor with national ambitions is to be ignored,” Farnsworth noted.
With a divided legislature likely to cause gridlock in the coming year and a gubernatorial election to pick Youngkin’s successor, Farnsworth added that, regardless of the presidential election outcome, there is “little downside in being combative” with the legislature.
Voter removal challenges elsewhere
As the fallout from the DOJ and League of Women Voters lawsuits continues, other states are also addressing concerns about voters being removed from rolls within the “quiet period.”
A federal court order temporarily halted the Alabama Secretary of State’s “plan to ‘inactivate’ people the office suspected of not being U.S. citizens,” the Alabama Reflector reported Oct. 21.
Another legal battle may be on the horizon in Ohio. Several voting rights groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, on Oct. 3 sent a letter to Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, raising concerns about mass voter removals in several counties.
The groups argue that the removals did not comply with the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and have warned they are prepared to take legal action if corrective measures are not implemented within 20 days.
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