Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Virginians without new felony convictions were reportedly removed from voting rolls.
A group of Democrats is once again urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate whether Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin had thousands of voters illegally purged from the state’s rolls.
Earlier this month, Virginia’s eight Democratic members of Congress asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate whether Youngkin’s administration had removed more than 10,000 voters who’d had their voting rights restored.
In Virginia, anyone convicted of a felony automatically loses the right to vote, and only the governor can restore that right. But some reports found that Virginians without new felony convictions were taken off the list.
Now, in a Monday letter to the DOJ, two senators and six House members are stressing that the department must take “immediate action” to determine why these removals occurred and what is being done to ensure these individuals are able to vote in the Nov. 7 Virginia election, for which early voting is already underway.
“The Department has indicated those affected voters’ records have been sent — and updated — to the local registrars who have then notified these voters via mail; however, it is not clear that these voters will receive the information they are reinstated in a timely manner,” the lawmakers’ letter to the DOJ states.
“Further, the Department noted that 100 of the voters who were wrongly removed have yet to be reinstated and may not be notified of their reinstatement with sufficient time to cast a ballot in next month’s election.”
The letter also highlights the backlog the Department of Elections faced last year after “unspecified technical problems,” which lawmakers argue put more than 100,000 new voter applications at risk of not being processed before the election. Later, the letter adds, multiple Virginians were turned away at polls, and reports found that the Department of Elections had failed to pass along 149,000 voting records.
The lawmakers added that the concerns they now have of voter purging follows the state’s decision in May to exit from the bipartisan Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a multistate program aimed at keeping voting rolls up to date.
Voting rights has become an increasingly hot topic for Democrats as concerns over gerrymandering and voter suppression in Republican-controlled areas abound.
Voter suppression predominantly affects Black voters, who make up part of the Democratic Party’s base. As concerns spread, groups including the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP have tried to enact new voter mobilization efforts and have continued to push for the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
In Virginia, voting rights advocates plan to rally Wednesday.
Nick Gothard, election protection manager of the nonpartisan Virginia Civic Engagement Table, said in a statement to The Hill that the potential purging is more than “bureaucratic oversight.” Rather, he said, it is actually a “direct attempt to blatantly disenfranchise voters.”
Gothard added that the organization is particularly concerned by the potential purging after a Fairfax County school board candidate was disqualified — after thousands of early voting ballots had been cast.
“These incidents, occurring in such close proximity to election day, raise serious questions about ongoing voter suppression tactics and efforts to subvert public trust in Virginia’s secure and fair elections,” Gothard said.
Updated at 3:27 p.m.