Virginia Threatened With Lawsuit Over Non-Citizen Voter Roll Maintenance

The Virginia Department of Elections is being threatened with litigation over its procedures to remove non-citizens from voter rolls by an election integrity group that says the state's procedure is resulting in the wrongful removal of eligible citizens from its registrations.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a group that litigates to protect election integrity, sent a notice to the Virginia Department of Elections on Dec. 12 warning that it could face a lawsuit unless it corrects its voter roll maintenance procedures. The department has yet to respond to the group nearly one month after the notice was delivered, according to its spokesman.

The PILF released a report in 2017 that detailed how state election officials removed 5.556 non-citizen voters from rolls between 2011 and 2017. Of the 5,556 non-citizens removed, 1,852 cast a total of 7,474 ballots in elections.

The December notice from the election integrity group said that some U.S. citizens also have been removed from its rolls and cited separate litigation in which several current and former Virginia residents who are citizens were named in non-citizen cancellation reports from the Commonwealth.

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