WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority allowed Virginia to resume hearing Wednesday deletion of voter registrations what the state says it is aimed at prevent people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

The Supreme Court has granted an emergency appeal by the Republican government of Virginia led by Governor Glenn Youngkin, due to the dissenting opinions of the three liberal justices. The court did not provide a rationale for its action, which is typical for urgent appeals.

The justices acted on Virginia’s appeal after a federal judge found that the state had illegally deleted more than 1,600 voter registrations over the past two months. A federal appeals court had previously allowed the judge’s order to remain in effect.

Such votes are rare in American electionsbut the specter of immigrants voting illegally has been a major part of the political messages this year from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans.

Trump had criticized the earlier statement, calling it “a totally unacceptable travesty” on social media. “Only American citizens may vote,” Trump wrote.

The Justice Department and a coalition of private groups previously sued the state in October, alleging that Virginia election officials, acting under an order issued in August by Youngkin, were striking out names from voter rolls in violation of federal electoral law.

The National Voter Registration Act requires one ‘Quiet period’ of ninety days before the elections for maintaining the electoral rolls so that legitimate voters are not removed from the electoral rolls due to bureaucratic errors or last-minute errors that cannot be quickly corrected.

Youngkin issued his order on August 7, the 90th day before the November 5 election. It required daily checks of state Department of Motor Vehicles data against voter rolls to identify people who are not U.S. citizens.

Protect Democracy, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, cited media interviews with voters showing that the Youngkin administration’s purge removed American citizens from the voter rolls.

An example is Nadra Wilson, who lives in Lynchburg, Virginia and narrated NPR she was swept up in the purge. “I was born in Brooklyn, New York. I am a citizen,” Wilson said, before showing her U.S. passport as proof of her citizenship.

Project Democracy said in a statement that “this program removes eligible voters. Virginia has not provided any evidence of non-citizens participating in elections. Because there isn’t one. And it is actually eligible VA voters who have been caught in the middle of this election subversion scheme.”

People can still register to vote during Virginia’s early voting period or on Election Day and cast provisional ballots, voters say.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said election officials can still remove names on an individual basis, but not through a systematic purge.

Giles had ordered the state to notify affected voters and local registrars on Wednesday that registrations have been restored.

Youngkin said the Supreme Court’s action was “a victory for the common sense and fairness of elections.”

“Clean voter rolls are an important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections,” he said in a written statement.

Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote.

In a similar lawsuit in Alabama, a federal judge ruled this month the state ordered to restore eligibility to more than 3,200 voters who were deemed ineligible noncitizens. Testimony from state officials in that case showed that about 2,000 of the 3,251 voters who were made inactive were actually legally registered citizens.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Virginia, Denise Lavoie in Richmond and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.