The Supreme Court's conservative majority, overriding the objections of the court's liberal members, allowed Virginia on Wednesday to continue its removal of over 1,600 voters from the rolls.
The state's Republican administration under Gov. Glenn Youngkin has said they are weeding out non-citizens who are not legally allowed to vote, but the U.S. Department of Justice and civil rights groups allege that the purge is also sweeping away actual U.S. citizens.
In a pair of lawsuits, the DOJ and civil rights groups accused Virginia of violating National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from "systematically" removing voters from the rolls 90 days or less before an election. A federal district judge ordered Virginia to restore the purged voters to the rolls last week, only for his directive to be reversed in turn by the Supreme Court, which did not explain its decision.
Not only does the decision appear to contradict federal law, but constitutes what former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance called a "disgraceful departure" from the federal courts' own jurisdictional principle to do no harm to the election process. The so-called Purcell principle, which takes its name from a Supreme Court election case in 2006, holds that courts should not change or approve of changes to election rules just prior to an election because it could confuse voters and disrupt election administration.
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a professor at Harvard Law School, wrote on X that even if the district judge's ruling to force Virginia to reverse the purge was what constituted the last-minute change, Purcell "shouldn't immunize the state's illegal action."
Legal experts warned that while the ruling from above would only affect a handful of voters, it could portend even more interference by the Supreme Court on a larger scale. "It is exceedingly unlikely that this ruling will affect the outcome of any federal races in Virginia. That said, it’s a rather ominous harbinger of the Court’s willingness not only to intervene in at least some election cases, but to do so without explaining its reasons why," Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor and CNN contributor, wrote in an X post.
"This is a bad sign. It suggests an unchastened Supreme Court poised to help Trump suppress lawful votes on the flimsiest basis," added Harvard legal scholar Laurence Tribe. "I still think the Roberts Six won’t succeed, but it won’t be for want of trying."
That the ruling only affects around 1,600 voters is beside the point when it is a "wrongheaded decision in light of clear federal law," concurred Marc E. Elias, a lawyer and founder of Democracy Docket.
