Federal judge orders Virginia to restore more than 1,600 voter registrations
A federal judge on Friday ordered Virginia to restore more than 1,600 voter registrations that she said were illegally purged in the past two months to keep noncitizens from voting.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles granted an injunction request brought against Virginia election officials by the Justice Department, which claimed the voter registrations were wrongly canceled during a 90-day quiet period ahead of the November election that restricts states from making large-scale changes to their voter rolls.
Thomas Sanford, an attorney with the Virginia attorney general's office, told the judge at the conclusion of Friday's hearing that the state intends to appeal her ruling.
The Justice Department and private groups, including the League of Women Voters, said many of the 1,600 voters whose registrations were canceled were citizens whose registrations were canceled because of bureaucratic errors or simple mistakes like a wrongly checked box on a form.