The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to an emergency challenge from Virginia, temporarily halting a federal judge’s decision ordering him to reinstate hundreds of potential noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.

The decision is a victory for Governor Glenn Youngkin and comes just days after the state of Virginia filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to halt a lower court decision ordering it to release the names of some 1,600 individuals on the electoral rolls.

“We are pleased with today’s Supreme Court order,” Youngkin told Fox News in a statement following the decision, which he described as a “victory for the common sense and fairness of elections.”

“I am grateful for the work of Attorney General Jason Miyares in this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of American citizens,” he added.

The crux of the matter is whether Virginia’s voter purge process violates a so-called silent period under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or a federal law that requires states to conduct all “systematic” maintenance of voter rolls for a period of 90 days. before a federal election.

26 REPUBLICAN ATTORNEY GENERAL JOIN VIRGINIA IN REQUESTING THE SUPREME COURT TO RULING ON THE ELECTOR LIST

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks at a news conference in Chalmette, Louisiana. (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)

That argument pitted the Justice Department — 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 nonresidents 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 within fourteen days.

The Justice Department argued that the removals occurred too close to the Nov. 5 election and violated the NVRA’s silent period provision, a decision backed by a U.S. judge in Alexandria who last week ordered Virginia to halt the removals and the registrations of all 1,600 deleted persons.

Justice Department officials also raised concerns in their lawsuit that eligible votes may have been improperly removed from the list without adequate notice or sufficient time to correct the error.

YOUNGKIN PROMISES TO APPEAL ‘TO SCOTUS’ AFTER US COURT ORDERS 1,600 VOTERS BACK IN THE BALLOT

In the state’s petition to the Supreme Court, Virginia Attorney General Jason S. Miyares objected to the lawsuit and the court’s subsequent ruling for several reasons. First, he argued that the NVRA does not extend to “self-identified non-citizens” in the state – through a closer reading of law than the Justice Department and one that he believes could make the primary basis for the lawsuit redundant.

Second, he argued that if the NVRA applies, the state would still have an “individualized process” for removing voters, administered by the Department of Motor Vehicles and directly by local registration offices.

On Monday evening, attorneys general from all 26 Republican-led states joined Virginia filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, supporting the claim that the removal program was conducted on an “individualized” basis, and further that the Department of Justice’s interpretation of the protections granted under the NVRA is overbroad and does not apply to non-citizens .

The Virginia Capitol in Richmond, Virginia. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

Lawyers urged the court to grant Virginia’s emergency motion and “restore the status quo,” noting that doing so would be “consistent with the law and would allow Virginia to ensure that non- citizens will not vote in the upcoming elections’.

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“This Court must reject respondents’ attempt to change the rules mid-game and restore the status quo ante,” they wrote. “The Constitution leaves decisions about the qualifications of voters up to the people of Virginia. And the people of Virginia have decided that non-citizens cannot vote.”

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