See below for a video update regarding lawsuits against Glenn Youngkin’s “illegal voter purge.”
“Progress Virginia, a member organization of the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, joins co-plaintiffs from the League of Women Voters for Virginia, and African Communities Together in Alexandria today as the federal court consolidates the lawsuit brought against the Youngkin administration with that of the U.S. Department of Justice. Not only is Glenn Youngkin’s illegal voter purge being conducted too close to Election Day, it is also disproportionately targeting naturalized citizens who are lawfully registered to vote. The courts have already ordered the administration to turn over the names of purged voters, and further hearings on the case are being conducted today.”
As you can see in the video, Monica Sarmiento – Executive Director for the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights – explains that:
“The Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, along with two of our member organizations – the League of Women Voters, as well as African communities together – put together a suit against the Virginia Board of Elections and the Virginia attorney general…in regards to Executive Order 35, which is the claim of purging non-citizens. What our investigation found out is that essentially who is being targeted is actually *naturalized* citizens. And so, luckily, we had a partnership with the Lawyers Committee Under Civil Rights as well as Project Democracy and Advancement Project and we filed a suit in regards to two things: first and foremost, violation of the voter purge of the National Voting Rights of 1993, which says you cannot purge voters 90 days within a federal election. But then number two, we’re also claiming discrimination against naturalized citizens, because that is who is this executive order is actually targeting and disproportionately disenfranchising in regards to the right to vote.
When we talked to a lot of these folks they had been voting for years, some of them had no idea they had been purged. Others said that they were shocked to find out that they had been purged because of misinformation the state had or the DMV had. But either way, they found out that their rights were being infringed upon and…voting is obviously sacred for every US citizen including naturalized US citizens, because we are just as Americanized as anybody else. And so this has been a voting rights issue that we have been fighting for…so this has been a collective effort as we’ve been fighting here at the courthouse.
Hopefully we’ll be able to go ahead and win an injunction; we don’t know if and when the ruling would come in our favor or if and when it would happen. But our immediate fight is to restore these voters so they are permitted to vote this federal election…So now we’re going to go ahead and wait for the judge to go ahead and issue…immediate relief and that immediate relief would be an injunction would mean essentially stopping Executive Order 35 for *this* election (that does not mean it would be stopped for next year’s election). So obviously this is going to be an ongoing battle…to show that naturalized citizens should retain their right to vote…It is in our opinion unpatriotic to continuously attack new Americans and especially knowing how much and how hard-fought and how many lives it has cost for people to go ahead and gain their right to vote. So we will fight tooth and nail to make sure we retain that right.”
Thank for that excellent, clear explanation about this important issue. Oh, and next time you hear Glenn Youngkin talking about this lawsuit on Fox or whatever far-right-propaganda channel he’s on, remember: if Youngkin’s lips are moving, he is most likely LYING. Also remember that today’s Trump/MAGA Republican Party is intensely hostile to voting rights in general, and particularly for people of color, immigrants, etc. So they obviously have less-than-zero credibility on this issue.
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