For Immediate Release:
October 29, 2024
For press inquiries only, contact:
Amanda Priest (334) 322-5694
William Califf (334) 604-3230
(Montgomery, Ala) – Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined a 25-state amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant Virginia’s emergency motion so that the Commonwealth is not forced to place noncitizens on its voter rolls for the upcoming election. Virginia seeks a stay of a federal district court’s preliminary injunction that forces the State to place self-identified noncitizens back onto the voter rolls.
“The Constitution gives States the power to detect and remove noncitizens on their voter rolls,” said Attorney General Marshall. “Shockingly, the Biden-Harris administration has demanded that federal courts intrude on that power—making it easier for noncitizens to vote in Virginia. States should not be required to wait and see if people who identify as noncitizens will vote. The Supreme Court must act to protect election integrity and state efforts to identify fraud before it happens.”
The brief argues that a preliminary injunction that halted Virginia’s efforts to remove self-identified non-citizens from its rolls undermines state authority to determine voter qualifications. Virginia’s law provides various mechanisms to protect election integrity, ensuring that only U.S. citizens remain on voter rolls.
“The upcoming election is hotly contested and has caused division around the country. Perhaps the division would be lower if the federal government were not interfering with the election via last-minute attacks on state efforts to police voter qualifications,” the amicus brief reads. The Eastern District of Virginia’s decision to stop Virginia from removing noncitizens from its rolls effectively forces it to allow some noncitizens to vote over the Commonwealth’s objection. There is no federal mandate that noncitizens be allowed to vote simply because their registration is discovered within 90 days of an election, the brief argues.
The Kansas-led brief that Alabama signed also includes Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
To read the full amicus brief, click here.
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