EPEC NEWS

From EPEC Team Substack: DOJ Joins the Fray in Attempt to Block Voter-List Maintenance

After the news hit Friday, the topic was trending on social media all weekend, driving hundreds of thousands of comments and criticisms of the DOJ’s actions.

The lawsuit targets Virginia over its regular list-maintenance programs that remove noncitizens after they “self-declared” they are not citizens and therefore not eligible to vote. Under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), this is considered a correction to the voter-list by removing individuals who have no right to register as noncitizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections, or at all in Virginia.

By the time EPEC Team published its weekly update Saturday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s statement in response to the DOJ lawsuit had racked up over 5 million views on “X.”

“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls — a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote.

Virginians – and Americans – will see this for exactly what it is: a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth, the very crucible of American Democracy.

With the support of our Attorney General, we will defend these commonsense steps, that we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us. Virginia’s election will be secure and fair, and I will not stand idly by as this politically motivated action tries to interfere in our elections, period.”

EPEC Team’s volunteer Executive Director Jon Lareau’s X feed was among the trending. His thread on the topic reached more than 12,000 views.

He wrote in part:

Removing registrations that were *never* eligible in the first place is considered a “correction” to the records, which is specifically exempt from the 90 day quiet period,” [of the National Voter Registration Act] Lareau wrote on his “X” feed.

“This interpretation is in agreement with a number of different legal rulings and corresponding practices in multiple states.”

Subscribe to Lareau’s X Feed Here

Not disputed in the lawsuits: Noncitizens who are removed from the voter rolls in Virginia, after self-declaring themselves as ineligible to vote under the law, left a voting history of casting ballots illegally.

Looking at the past year alone, EPEC Team found over 1,000 ballots cast by noncitizens going back to 2019 before they were removed, according to Dept. of Elections (‘ELECT’) voter records. Electoral boards in localities such as Fairfax County and Arlington have referred the noncitizens who registered and were removed by ELECT to law enforcement for investigation into felony voting violations.

See more about Lareau’s research on the topic here.

When Lareau looked at the voting records of non-citizens removed from mid-2023 to present, their voting histories showed a distinct bias for one political party.

See more about it here.

None of the lawsuits from the League of Women Voters (LWV) and the DOJ cite any citizens who were removed, or prevented from casting a ballot. #