Evening Edition: Supreme Court Allows Virginia To Purge Voter Rolls
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I'm Jerry Willis. I'm Steve Ducey. I'm Shannon Bream, and this is the Fox News Rundown. Wednesday, October 30th, 2024. I'm Eben Brown. Virginia will be allowed to keep more than a thousand names off its voter rolls for now, fearing they could be non-citizens.

But the Supreme Court will need to deal with this in the future. The Supreme Court is increasingly being asked to get involved in pre-election cases at a speed that we've not seen before. Normally it's after the election the Supreme Court gets a lot of questions. It may be something we're seeing a lot more now than we have before. This is the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition. ♪upbeat music playing♪

This is Jimmy Fallon inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at foxacrossamerica.com. The U.S. Supreme Court is putting a stay on a lower court ruling demanding the Commonwealth of Virginia allow about 1,600 residents to vote by Election Day.

Virginia officials say these supposed voters are not U.S. citizens, and they're happy the U.S. Supreme Court is erring on their side for the time being. The case will need resolution in the future, but Election Day is coming up. Governor Glenn Youngkin. We do have the ultimate safeguard, which is you can come day of and

and you can register same day and cast a provisional ballot. And therefore, no one is being precluded from voting who is a citizen in the United States and in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Well, that wasn't good enough for the U.S. Department of Justice, which tried suing the state. Well, this is a very controversial case out of Virginia, a state that people are watching, not so much as in previous elections, but it still could have impacts across the country.

Fox News correspondent David Spunt is covering this from Washington. Back in August, the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed an executive order that directed state officials to frequently sweep voter rolls in the state to try and remove any non-citizens from those voter rolls to make sure that they can't vote. If you're not a citizen, you're not able to vote in the United States, certainly in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Justice Department sued a couple of weeks ago arguing that Youngkin's executive order taking people off voter rolls, and we're talking about 1,600, give or take a few, violates federal law because there's something called the quiet period, the 90-day quiet period, where

Any officials in certain states cannot take overt actions to remove people or disenfranchise, according to the Justice Department, within that 90-day period. So had Youngkin removed people back in June or July...

you know, this wouldn't have been a problem, but DOJ says it's a problem. DOJ also says this is a problem because actual citizens were removed by mistake in this process. This all deals with a form that was filled out by voters at the DMV or by Virginia residents, I should say, at the local DMV when they apply for a driver's license. There's a box that

that some skipped, whether it was intentional. Some say they did it non-intentionally that asked if you're a United States citizen.

Some of those people have become citizens since filling out that DMV form. So the Justice Department said people have been disenfranchised. Actual citizens have been taken off by mistake. They went to sue the state of Virginia and asked a local district judge for a pause or an injunction. A district judge last week did so.

The state of Virginia came back, said we want another look at this from the appeals court in Richmond. So a three judge panel in Richmond said we also agree that we are going to allow these 1600 people back in the voter rolls because we can't take people's voting right away. And some citizens may have been swept up in this by mistake.

And then the Justice Department went to the or the state of Virginia, I should say, went to the Supreme Court because they weren't happy with the local district ruling the circuit court ruling. They went to the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court today in a six to three ruling along party lines. Justices typically get irritated when you say along party lines. But the six conservatives and three liberals saw different sides. And the six conservatives went forward and said that for now,

They're putting a pause on the prior rulings, which allowed the 1600 or so people back on the voter rolls, which essentially allows Virginia in so many words to continue to keep these roughly 1600 people off voting.

the voting rules. So a long answer to a short question, but that's what's going on in Virginia right now. And the Supreme Court is increasingly being asked to get involved in pre-election cases at a speed that we've not seen before. Normally it's after the election. The Supreme Court gets a lot of questions

But it may be something we're seeing a lot more now than we have before. This would be, I think, a win for Republicans who have made the cases that there are ineligible people on voter rolls, not just in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but in other states. And they've had...

Some real mixed results with regards to their attempts to fight these things in court. There was a ruling in the Nevada Supreme Court earlier this week having to do with things like late arriving mail-in ballots that have no postmark. And that had been another contention for Republicans, especially in Nevada, who blame that phenomenon for a Senate race loss a couple of years back.

This one is this one today in Virginia or out of Virginia with regard to the Supreme Court. This is a big one for them, isn't it? It is a big one. And Governor Glenn Youngkin says that, you know, all along, it's a common sense proposal that he wants to make sure that noncitizens are not able to vote. But the Justice Department says, listen, there is a federal law. You broke the federal law by signing this executive order within 90 days.

But they didn't win at the Supreme Court today. It doesn't mean the case will not come back. The Supreme Court just issued a pause now. But this is definitely a win for Virginia. And back to your comment about Nevada, you know, there's other states too right now that there are questions about turning in ballots and when they're going to be counted and whatnot. And I would let our listeners know that people need to really tamper their expectations because

In states like Pennsylvania, with so many electoral votes, a swing state to the max, really, if the polls are right and people could ask questions about polls. But Pennsylvania is a state that both candidates have been focusing on. Pennsylvania officials cannot even open envelopes.

from early voting until Election Day. So counting will take a while. Pennsylvania officials, Republican and Democrat, who are in charge of these types of things, say it doesn't mean anything is nefarious if it takes longer. You know, Eben, we live in a world right now where things are instant. You text someone, you expect them to get back to you right away. You email someone. How long does it take for someone to email me back? Well, voting in many ways is archaic.

And in states like Pennsylvania, officials cannot even open the envelope until Election Day. And these were people that early voted over the past week or so. Many other states you can count early and many states have reported early voting numbers so far, at least internally.

We are speaking with Fox News correspondent David Spunt in Washington on the U.S. Supreme Court getting involved in a Virginia election matter over voter rolls, among other legal issues leading up to next week's election. On the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition, we'll have more straight ahead.

The Supreme Court has gotten involved in some other cases as well, having to do with voting. And the big one that I'm talking about right now has to do with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who at one point was an independent candidate for the presidency. He has since endorsed...

Donald Trump and is campaigning for him and is encouraging people not to vote for himself, but to vote for the former president and has tried to get his name taken off the ballot in all states, or at least in swing states anyway. He's had very little success with that. And now the U.S. Supreme Court has said, sorry, you're staying on the ballot. I would think by now ballots are already printed up everywhere. But there you go.

So as quick as the Supreme Court is getting these cases and these election challenges, they're removing some from their docket. And yesterday on Tuesday, they announced that RFK Jr. will stand the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin. It's problematic. Some see for the Trump campaign because RFK Jr. endorsed Trump is fully supporting him and Trump.

People could still technically, if they want, vote for RFK Jr. taking away votes from Donald Trump in Michigan and in Wisconsin. He proposed having stickers put on some of the ballots, whatnot, that go out early. But ultimately, his name will be on there and people can still vote for him in those states if they want to. So a loss for him at the Supreme Court.

There's another, I think, we were talking about Pennsylvania earlier. Is there still an active case in Pennsylvania that the Supreme Court or courts have yet to rule on? I mean, we are kind of getting down to the wire. Yeah, we certainly are. There is another big one from Pennsylvania. We could get a ruling as soon as tonight, Wednesday night, or early on Halloween or midday on Halloween, Thursday, October the 31st. So,

Pennsylvania or the Supreme Court's being asked to step into a provision or a dispute, I should say, over provisional ballots. Those are the ballots that people submit if they're not fully verified or whatnot. And

Republicans have come to the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to weigh in on tens of thousands of provisional ballots because there's a dispute over some of these ballots cast by voters whose mail ballots are being rejected for not following technical procedures into state law. Some of those technical procedures mean that they have to come in a

mandatory secrecy envelope and they've not been uh... delivered in a mandatory secrecy envelope so the g_o_p_ in pennsylvania is asking for the supreme court to take a look at this into way on this in the supreme court will do such thing because they've asked

both sides to comment they've asked for replies from both sides they're going to be hearing a little bit later today from the gop in pennsylvania about that specific issue but as you say yes the time is running out no question i suspect we're going to see more cases that are being uh

more cases that are coming before the Supreme Court, at least asking the Supreme Court to get involved. But the question is, Eben, when does the Supreme Court stop and say, OK, listen, there's nothing else we can do right now. We are 48 hours. We are 24 hours. We are 10 hours from an election. We're going to have to take some of these cases afterward, which we expect to see a flurry of cases afterward as well. But notable, though, this year, we are seeing a lot of pre-election cases, and the court has been willing to take them up.

which is unusual for a court that says that they don't want to get involved in politics. This court has no problem getting involved in some of these cases. It would seem they're trying to head off some of their work that they're probably going to have later on. I mean, if they're going to be asked to make judgment calls after the fact, I think they probably want to go into this with as much decided in advance as they can. At least they know where they're coming from.

I think that's a fair assessment, absolutely. So they can set some ground rules and some guardrails and then, you know, refer people back to decisions that they made before. So it's not all of a sudden they have 5,000 cases that are, uh,

you know, on their doorstep. I mean, that's an exaggeration, 5,000, but there will be a lot of people that are going to the Supreme Court. The question is, will the Supreme Court take all of those cases? The Supreme Court takes cases they believe have implications that could impact

have effects on other states and whatnot. That's why this case in Virginia, while we're only talking about 1,600 voters, this could have impacts in other states. That's why the court took this case. Well, we've had elections before for president decided by fewer than 1,600 voters. That's for sure. We certainly have. David Spund, our Fox News correspondent in Washington. Thank you so much for being with us once again on the Fox News Rundown Evening Edition. Thank you, Evan.

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