#nvra

Ian Millhiser at Vox:

The Supreme Court issued a surprising order on Wednesday morning that allows Virginia’s Republican governor to openly defy a federal voting rights law. Though the Court didn’t announce how every justice voted in Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights, only its three Democrats publicly dissented. The GOP-controlled Court’s order is surprising because the federal law at issue in Beals, known as the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), is so clearly written. It prohibits states from “systematically” removing “the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters” within 90 days of a primary, or general election for federal offices. Virginia began a purge of about 1,600 voters, who its top Republican officials claim are noncitizens, exactly 90 days before the upcoming election. (A federal court later determined that some of the purged voters were, in fact, citizens.)

Realistically, this purge is unlikely to change the result of any races this election. Virginia has consistently voted for Democrats at the presidential level since 2008, and it’s not even clear how many of the people caught in this purge are lawful voters who intended to cast a ballot. But the Court’s decision to back the purge could have tremendous national implications because it suggests that the justices will allow states to ignore the NVRA. Previously, two lower federal courts ordered Virginia to abandon the purge, at least until after the election, and to restore the purged names to the state’s voter rolls. Wednesday’s order does not explain why the justices decided to reinstate this purge. One reason why the case is worrisome, however, is that Virginia’s Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares made several arguments in defense of the purge that would effectively neutralize the NVRA’s 90-day pause on voter purges altogether.

The MAGA majority on SCOTUS gave its blessing to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s NVRA-violating voter purges in the Beals case.

See Also:

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, challenging the state’s harsh Documentary Proof of Citizenship (“DCOP”) law, which makes it unreasonably difficult to register to vote. The ACLU contends that the DCOP violates the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”). A federal judge has tentatively agreed, issuing a preliminary injunction barring Kobach from enforcing the law while the suit is pending.

Kobach is also the man in this photograph with Donald Trump, taken before the two met together last November. The photo shows Kobach holding a stack of papers; some of the text is visible, including “Draft Amendments to National Voter...” The ACLU reasonably suspected that Kobach was trying to get Trump to amend the NVRA to make it harsher, as a result of which the Kansas DCOP law would no longer violate it. (This would, of course, suggest that the DCOP law was currently in violation of the NVRA, and that Kobach knew it.)

Delusional Donald famously (and falsely) insists: “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

Kellyanne Conway “named [Kansas Secretary of State Kris] Kobach as a source of the claim.” Kobach--who opposes both the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act--continued to support this claim despite the total lack of evidence, so Trump rewarded him by appointing him Vice-Chair of his new Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. Kobach is still promoting this claim publicly, despite having shown absolutely no supporting evidence for it whatsoever.

Numerous members of Congress, reasonably concerned that Kobach and the PACEI might not be entirely impartial, requested detailed information from the Commission on multiple occasions. Kobach and the PACEI ignored every single request, essentially telling Congress to fuck off.

So Congress took its evidence to the Government Accountability Office, which will now investigate the PACEI on multiple issues, including:

“The amount of all Federal funds expended to support the work of the PACEI (including staff);

“The efforts of the PACEI to address voter participation;

“The information that the PACEI used to form the basis of its conclusions, including peer reviewed studies;

“The methodology and analysis that the PACEI employed in reaching its conclusions;

“The steps the PACEI has taken to protect any voter information that it has collected; and

“The steps the PACEI took to adhere to regulations governing its activity.”

In the words of Senator Michael Bennett (a Democrat):