After a year and a half of litigation, Virginia voters can finally register to vote without fear that they will be illegally purged from voter rolls on the eve of an election.
Following a lawsuit filed by Campaign Legal Center and a pro-voter coalition to end an illegal voter purge before the 2024 president election, voters have agreed to a settlement to put an end to this illegal and discriminatory practice. All voters in Virginia must have the opportunity to make their voices heard.
For decades, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) has barred states from systematically removing voters from their voter rolls either within 90 days of an election or doing so in a way that is nonuniform or discriminatory.
Nevertheless, in blatant disregard of federal law, then-Governor Glenn Youngkin signed Executive Order 35 (EO 35) requiring the Department of Elections (ELECT) to escalate its list maintenance procedures, using faulty data to systematically identify and purge voters on a daily basis. The program, by its design, disproportionately impacted naturalized citizens and voters who speak English as a second language.
Under existing statute, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) flags voters to be purged from the voter rolls if they either check a box on DMV forms indicating that they are not a citizen or have documents on file with the DMV that correlate with noncitizen status.
In some cases, the DMV uses the federal SAVE system to check a voter’s citizenship status. EO 35 made this program worse by requiring the purge process to automatically start on a daily basis, in violation of federal law prohibiting systematic purges 90 days before an election.
The problem: The vast majority of purged voters were, in fact, citizens. These lawful voters either accidentally marked “noncitizen” on DMV paperwork — an accident more frequently impacting voters for whom English is a second language — or submitted documents indicating noncitizen status to the DMV before they became naturalized citizens.
In either case, these Virginians should have remained on the voter rolls. In 2024 alone, thousands of voters were removed from the rolls and referred to local prosecutors for investigation and prosecution.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC), Protect Democracy (PD), Advancement Project (AP) and Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL) sent Virginia a notice letter on behalf of the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights (VACIR), the League of Women Voters of Virginia (LWVVA) and African Communities Together (ACT) to obtain a list of voters affected by the purge program and information about the purge program itself.
The NVRA guarantees public access to records about state voter registration list maintenance programs like Virginia’s purge program. Still, Virginia refused to share records guaranteed under federal law.
As a result, on October 7, 2024, CLC, PD, AP and Lawyers Committee sued on behalf of VACIR, LWVVA, ACT and (later) two individual plaintiffs to challenge the purge program, including the authorizing statutes and EO 35, for violating the NVRA’s prohibition of systematic removals within the quiet period and list maintenance activities which are nonuniform and discriminatory. Plaintiffs also challenged Virginia’s refusal to produce documents to the public as the NVRA requires.
As part of that litigation, the plaintiffs were able to obtain a list of purged voters from the state. VACIR, LWVVA and ACT contacted over a thousand voters in Virginia to inform them they were removed from the voter rolls and, if the voter was a U.S. citizen, to help them reregister.
Every voter contacted from the list of purged voters was a U.S. citizen.
On October 25, 2024, a federal district court ruled that Virginia’s purge program likely violated the NVRA and ordered the commonwealth to stop administering the program within the quiet period.
When the defendants appealed the decision to the federal appeals court for the 4th Circuit, that court agreed with the district court and kept the district court’s order pausing the purge program in place. But the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling without any explanation, allowed the purge to continue for the 2024 presidential election.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in, plaintiffs largely prevailed against a motion to dismiss filed by defendants and have subsequently spent months obtaining evidence to build a strong case for trial.
On March 24, 2026, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger issued Executive Order 13 (EO 13), which revised EO 35.
As a part of EO 13, Governor Spanberger ordered that the Virginia Department of Elections certify, consistent with federal law, that “Not later than 90 days prior to the date of a federal primary or general election, any program for which the purpose is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the voter registration system based on evidence of ineligibility — including evidence of lack of eligible residence or evidence of non-citizenship — has been completed.”
EO 13 defined a program as systematic “if voters are identified and placed into a process for potential removal based on a computerized data-matching process or any other non-individualized review of the voter registration records.”
On April 17, 2026, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones issued an official advisory opinion that the removal of voters during the quiet period pursuant to the purge program challenged by plaintiffs is, in fact, a violation of the NVRA.
Now, we have reached a settlement to protect Virginian voters.
On April 17, 2026, the parties settled this case to the benefit of Virginia voters. The defendants agreed to stop implementing the purge program within 90 days of federal elections. They also agreed that LWVVA, ACT and VACIR can use the information they received through this litigation to re-register voters caught in the purge program before the next election. In return, the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss their claims and end the lawsuit.
Because of this settlement, Virginia voters can rest assured that they will not be purged under this flawed program just before the 2026 elections. The plaintiffs will keep advocating for more equitable voter list maintenance processes in Virginia.
Campaign Legal Center is continuing the fight to ensure voters are protected.
Ending the purge program’s operation within 90 days of any federal election ensures that voters are not removed from the voter rolls on the eve of an election. But the fight is not over.
Campaign Legal Center will continue to advocate for more accessible voter registration processes and the elimination of purge programs that disproportionately burden naturalized citizens and voters who speak English as a second language.
Join us as we continue the fight to ensure that all voters are protected from unlawful attempts to silence their voices.