Civil rights groups warn of potential voter suppression ahead of Election Day

Source: ABC News

October 31, 2024, 5:20 AM


Civil rights leaders believe that a decision handed down by the Supreme Court on Wednesday could lay the framework for post-election challenges.

The high court's conservative majority ruled to block an order from a federal judge that would have reinstated some 1,600 individuals to Virginia's registered voter count. Those individuals were removed in accordance with an executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin that required the daily purge of self-identified noncitizens from the state's voter rolls.

The Aug. 7 executive order brought lawsuits from immigration and civil rights groups, as well as the Justice Department, all of which alleged that it violated the 90-day quiet period mandated by the 1993 National Voting Rights Act. Now that the Supreme Court's unsigned order has allowed the purging to proceed, those advocates have implied that Virginia may very well be a canary in a coal mine, foreshadowing broader efforts aimed at undermining voting rights.

Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the nonpartisan Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which led one of the challenges, told ABC News, “None of this activity is random. It's all highly orchestrated, but it's also orchestrated with a purpose.” “They're trying to really test the bounds of the court's state and federal courts appetite for actually enforcing the NVRA,” he added.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/civil-rights-groups-warn-potential-voter-suppression-ahead/story?id=115323820