Youngkin’s decision to prevent noncitizens from voting follows the law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fairfax, VA – Today the Fairfax County Republican Committee (FCRC) condemned the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for interfering in Virginia’s voting process by suing Governor Youngkin for fulfilling his role and assuring that only legal citizens are able to vote on November 5th. The Virginia Constitution states “Each voter shall be a citizen of the United States.”   
 
Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order 35 explains that in the brief 18-month period between January 2022 and July 2024, the Virginia Department of Elections (ELECT) removed 6,303 noncitizens from the voter rolls.
 
“We are proud that Governor Youngkin is defending the citizens of the Commonwealth by cleaning up our voter rolls,” said Katie Gorka, Chairman of the FCRC. “For too long the DMV did not provide legally mandated data, and the Department of Elections (ELECT) did not demand it. As a result, noncitizens registered and voted. Gov. Youngkin is now simply following the law to ensure that Virginia voters are not disenfranchised. The DOJ’s attempt to thwart this action and push for noncitizens to vote is yet one more example of the Biden-Harris administration wielding the Department of Justice for their political purposes.”
 
For more than a decade, Virginia bureaucrats allowed thousands of noncitizens onto Virginia’s voter rolls.  From at least 2011 to the present day, thousands of noncitizens have been permitted to register to vote in Virginia, enabled by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). From 2013 to May 2023, the DMV did not provide to ELECT the document numbers obtained from legally present noncitizen DMV customers as required by law.  These document numbers would have enabled ELECT to verify the citizenship status of voter registrants via use of the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program operated by DHS USCIS.  
 
Prior to August 2024, ELECT also failed to use the SAVE program to verify the citizenship status of both newly registered voters and existing voter registrations, even though ELECT has had the ability to use SAVE since 2014.  Using the SAVE program, states and localities can verify legally present noncitizens’ immigration status and also their naturalized/acquired U.S. citizenship status.  
 
Moreover, ELECT and general registrars do not verify the social security numbers (SSNs) of non-DMV voter registrations with the Social Security Administration. For these registrations, SSNs are not even checked to ensure the numbers match to the holder’s correct name and date of birth.
 
“We have hundreds of election workers and poll watchers to help protect the integrity of this election, but there is no way for us to verify if the people voting are citizens, because the DMV and ELECT keep that information hidden from the people they claim to serve—the citizens of Virginia,” said Gorka. “That is why Gov. Youngkin’s actions are so important.”  
 
In addition to the Biden administration’s lawsuit, two groups, the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia, are suing to restore noncitizens to the voter rolls and to stop any further removal of noncitizens. These left-wing groups are also using campaign tactics to push noncitizens to re-register and vote on Election Day.
 
“These groups are trying to thwart the law to protect noncitizens, but we expect more of the U.S. Department of Justice,” said Gorka. “The DOJ and these groups are willful accomplices in felony activity if their lawsuits succeed.” 
 
FCRC is further calling on ELECT to do the following:

• Use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program to verify the citizenship status of ALL voter registration applicants who have associated noncitizen legal presence documents.
• Return to the original DHS/ELECT agreement which allowed the use of SAVE for voter registration as well as voter list maintenance.
• Establish a new information exchange agreement (IEA) with the Social Security Administration (SSA) granting DMV the authority to verify Social Security Numbers (SSNs) for voter registration purposes. This would enable the DMV to verify SSNs on all voter registration applications regardless of the point of origination.   
• ELECT and DMV to update the September 3, 2024, Memorandum of Understanding to specifically require DMV to transmit to ELECT all legal presence document numbers as mandated by law, and to use SSNs for identity verification.

 
For more information contact:
Diana Banister
dbanister@sovereignglobalsolutions.com
(703) 282-7320