Judge blocks Virginia's move to purge voter rolls as US election nears

By Jasper Ward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. federal judge on Friday blocked Virginia's removal of people it said had not proved their citizenship from its voter rolls, saying it ran afoul of a federal prohibition on purging large numbers of voters in the final 90 days before an election.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered the state to restore the eligibility of voters it had removed, less than two weeks before Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris face off in the Nov. 5 election.

Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order on Aug. 7 requiring the commissioner of the Department of Elections to certify that the agency was conducting "daily updates to the voter list" to remove, among other groups, people who are unable to verify that they are citizens.

U.S. citizens who were notified and did not affirm their citizenship within 14 days would be removed from the list of registered voters, the Justice Department said in a lawsuit challenging Virginia's move. It said this practice has led to citizens having their voter registrations canceled before an election.

Trump and his allies have repeatedly warned this year, without citing evidence, that they suspect large numbers of noncitizens could vote in the election. It is illegal for them to do so, and state and private reviews have turned up very few instances of it happening.

On Friday, Judge Giles said she had found "a clear violation of the 90-day quiet provision," according to The Washington Post.

"It is not happenstance that this executive order was announced on the 90th day," she said in court.

Youngkin said the state will appeal the ruling and take it to the U.S. Supreme Court, if needed.

Trump called the ruling "a totally unacceptable travesty" and said the Supreme Court "will hopefully fix it."

(Reporting by Jasper Ward; Editing by Alistair Bell)