11 purged from voter rolls in Staunton, Augusta County

Fewer than a dozen people have been purged from voter rolls between Augusta County and Staunton ahead of Election Day this Tuesday at the direction of Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Youngkin's executive order calling for daily cleanups of voter rolls ahead of the election prompted legal challenges from the U.S. Department of Justice, the League of Women Voters and the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights. Youngkin has argued that those removed are not legal citizens, as determined by Department of Motor Vehicle data. His opponents have argued that his order violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires systematic removals of voters occur at least 90 days before a federal election.

Lower courts which sided with the Justice Department and its allies were overruled Wednesday, when the conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court voted to uphold Youngkin's order. The news celebrated by Youngkin as well as GOP presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump, who has long claimed, without evidence, that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and contributed to his loss in the 2020 election.

As a result, 11 people have been purged from voter lists in Augusta County and Staunton: nine in Augusta County and two in Staunton. None were purged in neighboring Waynesboro.

Those local numbers pale in comparison to what was recorded in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County alone had 293 people purged from its voter rolls.

In the Shenandoah Valley, the city of Harrisonburg was hit the hardest: Some 45 people were purged from the rolls there. Democrats there said they believe the purge was targeted.

"It's repressing the vote in certain communities,'' Jayne Docherty, spokeswoman for the Harrisonburg Democratic Committee, told The News Virginian. "It has made some people angry enough to see if they had all the documentation to vote."

Docherty said the purge could dampen turnout among certain segments of the community and "could tip a local election in particular."

In Harrisonburg, voters are electing three members each to the Harrisonburg City Council and Harrisonburg School Board this coming Tuesday.

Still, in a state where over 4 million people cast a ballot in 2020, 1,600 people is unlikely to make a meaningful impact on Election Day. At the same time, multiple people have already started to come forward claiming their names were purged from voter rolls even though they are legal citizens of the United States.

Those people will still have an opportunity to cast a ballot, according to election officials.

That's because in 2022 the state began to allow same-day voter registration.

A purged voter — or any other U.S. citizen — can register at their polling place on Election Day. They will need to provide a form of identification, such as a driver's license, and can then vote with a provisional ballot.

Provisional ballots are not immediately processed by a vote-counting machine. Instead, they must first be approved by the local electoral board, a three-person body tasked with helping to administer elections. The decision is made after reviewing evidence gathered by the general registrar's office regarding the voter's eligibility. The voter is entitled to be at the meeting where that decision is made, but attendance is not required. Voters that cast a provisional ballot will be notified by their general registrar if their ballot is not counted.

Voter fraud in Virginia — which remains extremely rare — is a Class 6 felony that carries a punishment of up to five years in prison.

Democratic and Republican leaders in Waynesboro agree there won't be any impact on the city, seeing as how no one there was purged. What they disagree on who is at fault that multiple legal citizens have come forward saying they were wrongly kicked off their local voter roll.

Susan Dell, chair of the Waynesboro Democratic Committee, told The News Virginian the purge "is demeaning to the folks in charge of registration. It says that DMV and the local registrar are not asking for credentials."

Jim Wood, chair of the Waynesboro GOP, laid the blame on the legal citizens who failed to identify themselves to DMV officials. "What it comes down to is personal accountability," he said.

Far more pressing in Waynesboro is a lawsuit filed by the conservative leaders of the city's electoral board, who have threatened not to certify the results of the election claiming widely used vote-counting machines are unconstitutional; they have argued, erroneously, that vote-counting machines are connected to the internet and can be hacked.

A local judge is expected to rule on the matter in the coming days.

Election Day is Tuesday.

Bob Stuart (540) 932-3562

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