The Department of Justice (DOJ) under President Donald Trump formally dropped the government’s Biden-era lawsuit against Virginia over the commonwealth’s purge of noncitizens from its voter rolls before the 2024 elections.
Legal notice of the voluntary dismissal by the Trump administration’s DOJ was filed on Tuesday, months after the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed Virginia’s right to remove the noncitizens from its voter rolls despite the Biden-era lawsuit last October.
The voter purge involved approximately 1,600 noncitizens who were added to Virginia’s voter rolls due to an error when issuing driver’s licenses, despite the applicants acknowledging they did not have the right to vote.
At the time, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares stated that he was “gratified” by the decision, but remained “deeply concerned and alarmed that the Biden-Harris administration chose to execute this maneuver just 25 days before an election.”
Miyares said, “This is a win for commonsense, it’s a win for the rule of law, and means Virginia will continue to be allowed to follow our own laws, this idea that Virginia citizens should be deciding Virginia elections.”
Kathleen Wolfe signed the legal filing, the Acting Assistant Attorney General who began overseeing the Civil Rights Division in December, as well as the U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia.
It also comes as the Trump DOJ reportedly issued a memo that halts all ongoing and future cases within the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which President Donald Trump nominated conservative attorney Harmeet Dhillon to run under his administration.
The memo, first reported last week by The Washington Post last week, orders the Civil Rights Division to cease filing “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interests,” while the outlet reported that existing cases would be left to the judges overseeing them during a review.
A second memo reportedly ordered the division to notify top DOJ officials of any consent decrees filed during the final 90 days of the Biden administration.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “People Voting” by Lorie Shaull. CC BY 2.0.
