The U.S. Supreme Court granted a request from Virginia state officials to temporarily halt a lower court’s decision that ordered it to reinstate potential noncitizens onto its voter rolls.

“The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted,” the ruling read.

“Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson, would deny the application,” it added.

“We are pleased by the Supreme Court’s order today,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin told Fox News.

The Republican governor called the order a “victory for commonsense and election fairness.”

“I am grateful for the work of Attorney General @JasonMiyaresVA on this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections. Virginians also know that we have paper ballots, counting machines not connected to the internet, a strong chain of custody process, signature verification, monitored and secured drop boxes, and a ‘triple check’ vote counting process to tabulate results,” Youngkin wrote.

“Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference,” he added.

Fox News reports:

At the heart of the case is whether Virginia’s voter removal process violates a so-called quiet period under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or a federal law requiring states to halt all “systematic” voter roll maintenance for a 90-day period before a federal election.

That argument pitted the Department of Justice — which sued the state over its removal program earlier this month — against Youngkin, who insisted the state’s process is “individualized” and conducted in accordance with state and federal law.

With just days until the election, the court’s decision is expected to be under the microscope.

Virginia’s voter roll maintenance program was implemented in August and compares the state Department of Motor Vehicles’ list of self-identified noncitizens to its list of registered voters. Individuals without citizenship were flagged and informed that their voter registration would be canceled unless they could prove their citizenship in 14 days.

The Justice Department argued that the removals were conducted too close to the Nov. 5 elections and violated the NVRA’s quiet period provision, a decision backed by a U.S. judge in Alexandria, who ordered Virginia last week to halt its removals and to reinstate the registrations of all 1,600 removed individuals.

“I am pleased to announce that the US Supreme Court granted Virginia’s emergency stay to keep noncitizens off our voter rolls,” Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said.

Per CBS News:

Virginia officials had asked the Supreme Court to grant its request for emergency relief by Tuesday. They claimed that the district court’s order violates Virginia law “and common sense,” and “mandates a variety of disruptive measures.”

The injunction issued by the lower court will harm “Virginia’s sovereignty, confuse her voters, overload her election machinery and administrators, and likely lead noncitizens to think they are permitted to vote, a criminal offense that will cancel the franchise of eligible voters,” state officials wrote.

Federal and Virginia law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

Virginia’s bid for the Supreme Court’s intervention arose from a Justice Department lawsuit filed against the state earlier this month that targeted an executive order from Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican. The order formalized a systematic program to remove from statewide voter registration lists people who were unable to verify that they are citizens to the Department of Motor Vehicles. State officials said the program was in place, and the order merely changed the frequency of the data reporting from monthly to daily.

 

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