From the EPEC Team Newsletter: Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order about election security – including removing noncitizens from voter rolls – made a splash this week with election watchers around the nation.
Executive Order 35 recounts the administration’s modernization of election systems it has undertaken in the past few years.
The additional detail, however, such as ordering increased efforts to identify noncitizens ineligible to vote and remove them from the rolls, continues to make waves.
The announcement was among the top-trending topics on the “X” platform this week.
The EO received wide coverage. Per The Federalist: The executive order directs state agencies to undertake election security efforts ahead of the November election.
“All data collected by the DMV that identifies noncitizens is shared with ELECT, which uses it to scrub existing voter rolls and remove noncitizens who may have purposefully or accidentally registered to vote,” Youngkin wrote. “According to data from ELECT, between January 2022 and July 2024, records indicate we removed 6,303 noncitizens from the voter rolls.”
Other details of the order include:
—Directing that Dept. of Motor Vehicles verify the legal status of driver license applicants with the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database.
—It directs the DMV to check legal status of its credential system against the Social Security Administration (SSN), which signifies noncitizens and citizens in its database.
The EO also directs the Commissioner of Elections to certify in writing that critical election-security procedures are being followed.
It includes removing individuals who are unable to verify they are citizens when they are being assigned driver licenses at the DMV … and to notify any matches of their pending cancellation unless they affirm their citizenship within 14 days.
And it directs the DMV to expedite the inter-agency data sharing with the Dept. of Elections of non-citizens “by generating a daily file of all non-citizens transactions, including addresses and document numbers.”
The EO reminds all of the Commonwealth’s 133 registrars they are “required to cancel the registrations of non-citizens who have registered to vote in local, state, or federal election by falsely claiming that they are a citizen, including the forging of documentation or any other means of improper registration.”
And it reminds registrars of their duty under the code of Virginia to immediately notify the Commonwealth’s Attorney … of this alleged unlawful conduct.
“This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s an American and Virginian issue,” Gov. Youngkin said of the announcement on an “X” statement Wednesday.
“Every legal vote deserves to be counted.”
Even election-integrity groups who had grown concerned that ELECT was not taking action on known errors on voter lists, as well as evidence that noncitizens were voting, were offering praise.
EPEC Executive Director, Jon Lareau, who leads the all-volunteer EPEC Team of data analysts and voter-participation efforts, renewed his offer to the Governor’s office and the Commissioner of Elections to assist in voter database analysis techniques.
“As the lead of one of the few nonpartisan, non-gov affiliated, data-centric, citizen groups doing statewide election data processing and analysis in VA, EPEC is happy to assist in any way we can,” Lareau posted on his “X” account in reply to Gov. Youngkin’s social media posting.
The offer still stands, he added.
In addition to voter-participation activities and its work promoting voter database best practices, EPEC Team will do its part to continue reporting out the EO details. For now, that’s a wrap on a big week for election-security measures.
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