Recently, Virginia took measures to ensure that over 6,300 non-citizens were purged from the Old Dominion’s voter roll to ensure election integrity as the nation approaches November. Republican Governor Glen Youngkin led the initiative, issuing an executive order earlier this week that would exclude the individuals.
Youngkin’s order instructed the Department of Elections to remove “non-citizens who may have purposefully or accidentally registered to vote.” Additionally, the order also commanded the state to remove nearly 80,000 deceased voters and identified registered voters who had moved out of state. Youngkin said in a statement, “The Virginia model for Election Security works. This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s an American and Virginian issue. Every legal vote deserves to be counted without being watered down by illegal votes or inaccurate machines.”
The governor further highlighted the measures Virginia is taking to ensure the integrity of the upcoming election. Youngkin maintained that the Old Dominion utilizes paper ballots, well-tested counting machines, does not use mass mail ballots, and more. He made it a point to emphasize that voters’ citizenship is confirmed amid growing concerns that illegal immigrants might vote.
“We use 100% paper ballots with a strict chain of custody. We use counting machines, not voting machines, that are tested prior to every election and never connected to the internet. We do not mass mail ballots. We monitor our drop boxes 24/7. We verify the legal presence and identity of voters using DMV data and other trusted data sources to update our voter rolls daily, not only adding new voters, but scrubbing the lists to remove those that should not be on it, like the deceased, individuals that have moved, and non-citizens that have accidentally or maliciously attempted to register,” the governor continued.
Youngkin explained that the “the last four digits of a voter’s social security number and year of birth provided on the envelope are matched to the voter’s record in the statewide voter registration system.” Emphasizing the importance of election integrity, he continued, “In Virginia, we don’t play games, and our model for election security is working,” Youngkin said.
The American Tribune also reported on recent actions from Ohio, where officials purged hundreds of non-citizens from its voter roll. “I swore an oath to uphold the constitution of our state, and that document clearly states that only United States citizens can participate in Ohio elections. That means I’m duty-bound to make sure people who haven’t yet earned citizenship in this country aren’t voting. If or when they do become citizens, I’ll be the first one to congratulate them and welcome them to the franchise, but until then the law requires us to remove ineligible registrations to prevent illegal voting,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said.
As illegal immigrations has skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration and millions of people have unlawfully entered the country there has been concern about the possibility of non-citizens impacting the outcome of the election. House Speaker Mike Johnson recently visited the southern border where he stressed the importance of the SAVE Act, which would move to ensure that only U.S. citizens are voting.
“Kamala Harris and 198 House Democrats want to allow illegal aliens to decide American elections right now, and every noncitizen can do that, and there’s no real impediment except the honor system. We don’t believe that is going to work. Our elections are too narrow and too important to allow this to happen, especially since the administration is now on track to report 10 million encounters with illegals before October. That’s the official number. We believe, I personally believe, members of Congress believe the number is probably closer to somewhere in the 16 million person range,” Johnson said.
Watch Johnson below:
Featured image credit: Glenn Youngkin, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glenn_Youngkin_addressing_Faith_%26_Freedom_group_6-21-24_03.jpg
