In a move applauded by Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, the U.S. Supreme Court has sided with the state of Virginia in its decision to disallow 1,600 non-citizens from participating in the upcoming election. This verdict follows an amicus brief, supported by attorneys general from 26 states, which emphasized the autonomy of states to regulate voter eligibility and maintain the integrity of elections. "We applaud the Supreme Court decision to reinforce the power of states to properly regulate elections and keep them fair and free of fraud or foreign influence," said Reyes, as per the Utah Office of the Attorney General.
The high court's emergency docket ruling denies the restoration of voting rights to individuals who had been removed from Virginia's voter roll after having identified themselves as non-citizens on DMV records within the prior year. These removals were part of Virginia's efforts to ensure that only U.S. citizens were registered as voters, a stance backed by the multi-state brief which asserts that a prior injunction from the Eastern District of Virginia Court undermined state authority and could have forced a state to allow non-citizen voting. "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 brief suggested.
Leading the charge was Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who has long been a vocal opponent of non-citizen voting. "It has always been against the law for non-citizens to vote. Every vote cast by a non-citizen effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen. It is unconscionable that Democrats and activist judges are fighting to keep them on the rolls," Kobach was cited saying in the same briefing, as obtained by the Utah Office of the Attorney General.
As a collective force, attorneys general from states as diverse as Alabama to Wyoming have joined Utah and Kansas in this legal brief. The document details a staunch position on the subject, stating, "Non-citizens are not eligible voters. They were not eligible voters before Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, they were not eligible when Congress passed the NVRA, and they are not eligible today," holding firm on the historical and ongoing illegality of non-citizen participation in U.S. elections.
