Tennessee and 24 other states joined the amicus brief filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court appeal launched by Virginia in its bid to overturn a ruling requiring the commonwealth to add about 1,600 noncitizens back to its voter rolls after they were originally included in error.
The amicus brief was filed in support of Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who on Sunday appealed to the Supreme Court after the Biden-Harris Department of Justice obtained favorable rulings in lower courts to require Virginia to include the 1,600 noncitizen voters on its voter rolls prior to Election Day.
Originally granted voter registrations in error, most of the noncitizens were registered to vote when they obtained driver’s licenses in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Governor Glenn Youngkin recently revealed most signed paperwork specifically stating they are not citizens and do not have the right to vote in federal elections.
Filed by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, 25 other states joined the amicus brief, including Tennessee, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
“Three weeks before a hotly contested elections, Respondents filed a lawsuit alleging that Virginia violated the National Voter registration Act (NVRA) by removing self-identified noncitizens from its voter rolls less than 90 days before the election,” the attorneys wrote in the brief, adding that the original complaint was filed “more than sixty days after the alleged violation and weeks after early voting had already begun.”
The NVRA prohibits states from cleaning their voter rolls within 90 days of an election, but Virginia argued the legislation does not apply, as the noncitizens cannot legally vote and were added to the voter rolls in error, giving the commonwealth the right to remove them despite the 90-day prohibition.
According to Kobach and the other states’ attorneys general, the lower courts’ interpretation of the NVRA constitutes “substantive federal regulation of voter qualifications in elections,” which would run contrary to previous Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.
They argued this would in turn, “would raise serious questions bout the constitutionality of the NVRA itself,” potentially forecasting future litigation.
“This Court can avoid these constitutional issues by accepting Virginia’s narrower and correct reading of the NVRA’s 90-day provision,” wrote the attorneys, before urging the Supreme Court to avoid a “constitutionally questionable interpretation” of the law.
Both the Republican National Committee and Republican Party of Virginia have additionally filed amicus briefs in the case, as have conservative election integrity groups including the Honest Elections Project and National Election integrity Association.
Other groups filed amicus briefs supporting the decision to require the commonwealth to add noncitizens back to its voter rolls, including the Virginia Coalition of Immigrant Rights.
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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].
