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      Virginia must restore voter eligibility to more than 1,600 after US judge ruling

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      Virginia must restore more than 1,600 people to the voter rolls after a federal judge ruled on Friday that the state had illegally removed them.The US district judge Patricia Giles granted an injunction request brought against Virginia election officials by the justice department, which claimed the voter registrations were wrongly canceled during a 90-day quiet period ahead of the November election that restricts states from making large-scale changes to their voter rolls.“The ruling is a big victory. All of the eligible voters who were wrongfully purged from the voter rolls will now be able to cast their ballots,” said Ryan Snow, a lawyer with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, one of the groups that sued the state over the policy. “The judge stopped the outrageous mass purge of eligible voters in Virginia.The voters had been flagged for removal after Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, issued an executive order on 7 August requiring election officials to check voter rolls against DMV records on a daily basis for non-citizens. Voting rights groups have long warned that such comparisons are an unreliable way to check for citizenship because someone can become a naturalized citizen after getting their driver’s license or may accidentally check the wrong box at the motor vehicles department.Thomas Sanford, an attorney with the Virginia attorney general’s office, told the judge at the conclusion of Friday’s hearing that the state intended to appeal her ruling.The justice department and private groups, including the League of Women Voters, said many of the 1,600 voters whose registrations were canceled were in fact citizens whose registrations were canceled because of bureaucratic errors or simple mistakes like a mischecked box on a form.Justice department lawyer Sejal Jhaveri said during an all-day injunction hearing on Thursday in Alexandria, Virginia, that’s precisely why federal law prevents states from implementing systematic changes to the voter rolls in the 90 days before an election, “to prevent the harm of having eligible voters removed in a period where it’s hard to remedy”.Giles said on Friday that the state was not completely prohibited from removing non-citizens from the voting rolls during the 90-day quiet period, but that it must do so on an individualized basis rather than the automated, systematic program employed by the state.State officials argued unsuccessfully that the canceled registrations followed careful procedures that targeted people who explicitly identified themselves as non-citizens to the Department of Motor Vehicles.Charles Cooper, a lawyer for the state, said during arguments on Thursday that the federal law was never intended to provide protections to non-citizens, who by definition cannot vote in federal elections.“Congress couldn’t possibly have intended to prevent the removal … of persons who were never eligible to vote in the first place,” Cooper argued.The plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit, though, said that many people are wrongly identified as non-citizens by the DMV simply by checking the wrong box on a form. They were unable to identify exactly how many of the 1,600 purged voters are in fact citizens – Virginia only identified this week the names and addresses of the affected individuals in response to a court order – but provided anecdotal evidence of individuals whose registrations were wrongly canceled.Cooper acknowledged that some of the 1,600 voters identified by the state as non-citizens may well be citizens, but he said restoring all of them to the rolls means that in all likelihood, “there’s going to hundreds of non-citizens back on those rolls. If a non-citizen votes, it cancels out a legal vote. And that is a harm,” he said.He also said that with the election less than two weeks away, it was too late to impose the burden of restoring registrations on busy election workers, and said the plaintiffs who filed their lawsuits roughly two weeks ago should have taken action sooner.State officials said any voter identified as a non-citizen was notified and given two weeks to dispute their disqualification before being removed. If they returned a form attesting to their citizenship, their registration would not be canceled.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn media interviews, Youngkin has questioned the justice department’s motives for filing the lawsuit.“How can I as a governor allow non-citizens to be on the voter roll?” Youngkin asked rhetorically during an appearance on Fox News Sunday.Donald Trump, who is already spreading baseless claims about fraud, also weighed in on the case after the justice department filed a lawsuit to stop the removals.“Sleepy Joe Biden and Comrade Kamala Harris ridiculously accuse me of wanting to ‘weaponize’ the Justice Department, when they have done all of the weaponizing. Now, their truly Weaponized Department of ‘Injustice,’ and a Judge (appointed by Joe), have ORDERED the Great Commonwealth of Virginia to PUT NON-CITIZEN VOTERS BACK ON THE ROLLS,” he said, despite evidence that several of those affected were actually citizens.Jason Miyares, Virginia’s Republican attorney general, issued a statement after Friday’s hearing, criticizing the ruling.“It should never be illegal to remove an illegal voter,” he said. “Yet, today a Court – urged by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice – ordered Virginia to put the names of non-citizens back on the voter rolls, mere days before a presidential election. The Department of Justice pulled this shameful, politically motivated stunt 25 days before Election Day, challenging a Virginia process signed into law 18 years ago by a Democrat governor and approved by the Department of Justice in 2006.”Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote.A similar lawsuit was filed in Alabama, and a federal judge there last week ordered the state to restore eligibility for more than 3,200 voters who had been deemed ineligible non-citizens. Testimony from state officials in that case showed that roughly 2,000 of the 3,251 voters who were made inactive were actually legally registered citizens. More

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      Rare Northern Lights Entrance Viewers in New York and Beyond

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      The aurora borealis, which transformed the sky with startling streaks of pink and purple, arose from a magnetic storm.As a girl in Michigan, Gabriela Aguilar sometimes went looking for the northern lights in the state’s Upper Peninsula. But it wasn’t until Thursday night, when she climbed to the roof of her apartment building in Harlem, that she finally saw them.“I’m just shocked that it took my entire life to be able to see it,” said Dr. Aguilar, 37, who stood with her dog, Gomez, and watched the sky turn pink, purple and green until the autumn chill drove her back inside. “And — of all places — seeing it in New York City!”New Yorkers were treated to a rare light show Thursday night as the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, spread an ethereal smear across the sky. On social media, people as far south as Washington, D.C., and Kentucky reported seeing the lights, which in pictures seemed to vary in color and intensity from neon pink to a subtle hazy purple.Udi Ofer, a professor of public affairs at Princeton University, was at home shortly after dusk when a neighbor texted to alert him to the sky. He rushed to his backyard in Princeton, N.J., with his 9-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son.For about 20 minutes, they watched stripes of pink and purple as the stars began to come out.“I think the thing that’s most remarkable about it are the streaks of light, which I just didn’t expect,” Mr. Ofer, 49, said. He called them “pretty magical.”The northern lights were also seen from behind Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence, on the Upper East Side.City of New YorkWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Early Voting Begins in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia

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      Early voting began in Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia on Friday, letting voters in those states cast ballots while Election Day remains a month and a half away, on Nov. 5.All three states began sending out mail ballots on Friday, and residents now have the option of voting in person. Minnesota and South Dakota are letting voters fill out ballots and turn them in at various locations, while Virginia has opened some polling locations.Historically, voters who were unable to make it to the polls on Election Day had to request absentee ballots. But mail and absentee ballots now function effectively the same in many states. The terminology used varies; Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia mostly refer to early voting ballots as absentee.None of the three states are must-win battlegrounds, most of which start in-person early voting in October. Read more about important dates and deadlines, and ways to access information about the voting process in your state.MinnesotaVoters can complete paper ballots in person or request mail ballots through an online form or by mail. The ballots can be submitted in person at designated voting locations, which include municipal buildings, public libraries and community centers. Ballots that are mailed in must be received by Election Day.South DakotaSouth Dakotans can complete paper ballots in person at their local county auditor’s office during business hours or request to have them mailed. All mail ballots must be received by the end of business on Nov. 4, the day before Election Day.VirginiaMany counties opened at least one polling location on Friday, including local general registrar’s offices. Not all polling locations are open yet. More will open through late October. Early voting ends on Nov. 2.Virginia voters can request mail ballots in person at the local registrar’s office, by mail or online through Oct. 15. Voters who request ballots after the deadline may still be eligible in cases of emergency or unexpected obligation. Mail ballots must be submitted in person by 7 p.m. on Election Day or, if submitted by mail, postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the registrar’s office by noon on Nov. 8.Taylor Robinson More

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      Beaches Close in Maryland, Delaware and Virginia as Needles Wash Ashore

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      Beachgoers were urged to stay out of the water after dozens of hypodermic needles, as well as tampon applicators and other medical waste, were found on beaches over the weekend.The authorities closed beaches in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware to swimmers on Sunday after medical waste — including used hypodermic needles and used feminine hygiene products — washed up in popular vacation spots.The closures stretched along nearly 50 miles of coast from Fenwick Island in Delaware to Chincoteague Island in Virginia. The beaches include Assateague Island, a barrier island that stretches 37 miles along the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, as well as Ocean City, Md., and Dewey Beach in Delaware.“We currently have no idea where it came from and will not be speculating about a source,” the National Park Service office at Assateague Island National Seashore said of the medical waste in a statement on Facebook.Along with used needles, the authorities said they also discovered used tampon applicators, colored needle caps, and cigarillo cigar tips. An Assateague park manager told The Washington Post that crews had discovered the garbage early Sunday while patrolling after high tide. They had found nearly 50 needles there, and enough waste material to fill a five-gallon bucket. The official added that no injuries or incidents had been reported, and swimmers had not encountered the objects.The waste began coming ashore on Sunday morning, officials at Assateague said, and they were unsure how long beaches in the area would remain closed.The alerts impacted dozens of miles of coastline, including busy tourist beaches, as authorities not only urged caution among swimmers, but in many areas forbade activities in the water, including swimming, wading and surfing.“Until we are confident that the situation is under control, we recommend wearing shoes on the beach and avoiding the ocean entirely,” Joe Theobald, the director of Emergency Services in Ocean City, Md., said in a statement.It’s not the first time that tides have scattered such hazardous material along the eastern seaboard. In 2021, floodwaters in New York City caused sewage releases in New York harbor that sent hundreds of used syringes along the Jersey Shore. At the time, authorities believed many were likely used by diabetics, who had flushed the needles down the toilet after use.And, in 1987, dozens of miles of New Jersey shoreline were shut down after hospital waste and raw garbage suddenly appeared on beaches. In that instance, incensed officials believed the waste was illegally dumped by a passing barge.It was unclear on Monday how long the beaches would remain closed. Shorelines still remained off-limits to swimmers on Sunday evening. More

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      Kamala Harris says Trump ‘disrespected sacred ground’ on cemetery visit

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      Kamala Harris – the Democratic nominee for November’s White House race – has accused Donald Trump of “disrespecting sacred ground” on his recent visit to Arlington national cemetery, as the controversy over an apparent altercation between workers of his campaign and cemetery staff continued to build.The vice-president on Saturday accused the former president and Republican nominee of staging a “political stunt” after the US army accused the Trump campaign of turning a wreath-laying ceremony on Monday to mark the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan into a photo opportunity. The army also accused two campaign workers representing Trump – who said he was invited to the ceremony by the family of one of the honored soldiers – of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.Harris wrote in a lengthy statement on X that the cemetery – the resting place of more than 400,000 military veterans and their eligible dependents, dating back to the revolutionary war – was “not a place for politics”.She said: “Donald Trump’s team chose to film a video there, resulting in an altercation with cemetery staff. Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt.”Meanwhile, Democrats have called for a US army report into an apparent altercation between campaign staff and cemetery officials.In her statement, Harris said: “If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude.“And it is my belief that someone who cannot meet this simple, sacred duty should never again stand behind the seal of the President of the United States of America.”At a rally on Friday, Trump said he only posed for photographs at the invitation of the families – even though they did not have the authority to approve such pictures.He said in Johnstown, Pennsylvania: “I don’t need publicity. I get a lot of publicity. I would like to get a lot less publicity … I would hire a public relations agent to get less publicity.”In a final rebuke of Trump, Harris wrote of fallen soldiers: “I mourn them and salute them. And I will never politicize them.”In a letter to the US army secretary, Christine Wormuth, Democrats with the House oversight committee requested a report by Monday into the reported showdown, including whether the Republican nominee’s “campaign staff violated federal law or cemetery rules and whether the Trump campaign informed the families of service members buried at the cemetery that their gravestones would be used in Mr Trump’s political campaign ads”, as CBS reported.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe cemetery is considered a politics-free zone. But on Monday, on the invitation of relatives of the soldiers killed in Kabul, Trump brought campaign photographers to document the visit.An army spokesperson said on Thursday that a female Arlington national cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” during an argument with Trump aides over photos and filming on the grounds for partisan, political or fundraising purposes.A spokesperson for the military said the episode was “unfortunate”, and it was “also unfortunate” that the cemetery “employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked”. The employee is not pressing charges.The army said Arlington national cemetery conducts nearly 3,000 such public ceremonies annually “without incident”, and visitors to the ceremony Trump attended had been made aware of laws that prohibit political activity.The Trump campaign said it had been granted explicit permission to bring “campaign-designated media” to the section of the cemetery for the slain soldiers’ – or Gold Star – families. The campaign denied an altercation had taken place and said: “There was no physical altercation as described and we are prepared to release footage if such defamatory claims are made.”View image in fullscreenDemocratic congressman Jamie Raskin said in the letter that “it appears that the Trump campaign – which arrived at the cemetery with a photographer and videographer – completely flouted the laws and rules they were informed of and filmed footage in the restricted area for use in a political TikTok video”.Raskin also cited an apology issued by the Utah governor, Spencer Cox, who had attended the ceremony with Trump and posted photos of the event to his official social media accounts.“This was not a campaign event and was never intended to be used by the campaign,” Cox wrote in a social media post on Wednesday. “It did not go through the proper channels and should not have been sent. My campaign will be sending out an apology.”Republicans have trying to make the US withdrawal from Afghanistan a campaign issue through which to attack Harris.In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Harris confirmed she was the last person in the room before Joe Biden made the decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan. Asked if she felt comfortable with the president’s decision, Harris responded: “I do.” More

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      ‘The chilling effect’: behind GOP-led states’ efforts to purge some voters from the rolls

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      Earlier this week, Texas governor Greg Abbott sent out a press release with an eye-popping headline: his state had removed more than 1 million people from its voter rolls since 2021. Among them were 6,500 non-citizens. A little under a third of those non-citizens had some sort of voting history in Texas, where there were nearly 18 million registered voters as of March, and were referred to the attorney general for further investigation.Two days later, the governor’s office quietly revised the statement posted online. Instead of saying 6,500 non-citizens had been removed, the updated version said 6,500 potential non-citizens had been removed. Renae Eze, an Abbott spokesperson, said that the statement sent out to an email list of reporters on Monday contained the phrasing “potential non-citizens”. She did not respond to a query on why the version that was publicly posted initially omitted the word “potential”.The statement was the latest example of how Republican-led states are touting aggressive efforts to remove people with early voting, scheduled to begin in weeks and less than 70 days until election day. Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama and Ohio have all made similar announcements recently.Voting rights groups are concerned these announcements are misleading, and that the efforts to purge are putting naturalized citizens – eligible voters – at risk for being removed. There is also concern that these efforts are running afoul of a federal law that prohibits systematic removal of voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.Looking closer at the Texas announcement, there were other questions. The vast majority of people removed had been cancelled for routine reasons – they had either died or moved. The number of voters cancelled for these reasons is similar to totals from past years, according to a New York Times analysis.“Releasing these numbers without context is a thinly disguised attempt to intimidate voters of color and naturalized citizens from exercising their rights to vote, which is particularly concerning given the upcoming election,” said Savannah Kumar, a voting rights attorney with the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.“With the state having invented the fabricated issue of widespread illegal voting as a tactic to intimidate people of color from exercising their right to vote, we’re seeing now that the state has to resort to spinning otherwise ordinary data to make it look like it’s addressing this invented problem.”In Tennessee, state election officials sent out notices to more than 14,000 suspected non-citizens on the eve of early voting in June, warning them of the criminal penalty they could face for voting illegally. The effort immediately drew scrutiny because Tennessee was looking to see whether someone reported being a non-citizen at the DMV to flag them as a non-citizen. That kind of comparison has been shown to be unreliable in the past, because people may get a driver’s license and become naturalized citizens before they have to renew it.The state sent out 14,375 notices, and at least 3,200 people – around 22% – responded saying they were in fact citizens. Election officials eventually admitted that those who didn’t respond would not be removed from the rolls, even if they didn’t respond.In Alabama, the state’s Republican secretary of state, Wes Allen, announced that his office had identified 3,251 people on the voter rolls who had received a non-citizen identification number at one point from the Department of Homeland Security. While he acknowledged that some of those people may have since become naturalized citizens and eligible voters, he nonetheless designated all of them inactive voters and requested that they prove their citizenship. All 3,251 were also referred to the Alabama attorney general’s office for further investigation.A coalition of civil rights groups sent a letter to Allen on 19 August warning him that his actions violated the National Voter Registration Act, the 1993 federal law that sets guardrails on how states can remove people from the voter rolls. Among other things it says that any systematic efforts to remove people must be “uniform” and “non-discriminatory”. The state also can’t complete any mass removal program within 90 days.“We’re extremely concerned about the chilling effect this has on registered voters generally speaking, and particularly newly naturalized citizens,” said Kate Huddleston, a lawyer at Campaign Legal Center, one of several groups that signed on to the letter warning Alabama that it may be running afoul of federal law.The Alabama secretary of state’s office did not say how many people had responded indicating they were citizens. In Jefferson county, one of the largest in the state, 557 were flagged as potential non-citizens, according to Barry Stephenson, the county’s registrar. Three people have responded to notices that went out so far, Stephenson said. Two people said they did not know how they had become registered voters. The third said they were a citizen.One Alabama voter, a Huntsville man named James Stroop, told the local news outlet WAFF 48 that he had been wrongly flagged. The Alabama department of labor had incorrectly noted he was a non-citizen on a form years ago. Even though he had corrected the issue with the department of labor, he was still marked as a non-citizen when the agency sent data to the Alabama secretary of state.“Imagine if Alabama’s DMV had different information about a different group of voters and they knew that some vanishingly small percentage of people with green eyes were ineligible to vote for some reason,” she added. “And then they pulled everyone with green eyes off the rolls. I think the problem would be obvious to everyone that you can’t just deregister voters because some vanishingly small percentage of them may be ineligible to vote.”In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, issued an executive order noting that his administration had removed 6,303 non-citizens from the rolls since taking office. That represents an incredibly small fraction of the more than 6.3 million people registered to vote in the state as of 1 July.Like Tennessee and Alabama, Virginia is flagging non-citizens on its rolls using both data from its DMV and the Department of Homeland Security to identify potential non-citizens. Anyone removed is given 14 days to indicate they are in fact citizens. It’s unclear how many of the people removed were actually non-citizens and how many simply didn’t respond.“We take seriously the potential for errors in database matching, the consequences for voters and the public at large of any erroneous removal of eligible voters from the voter registration rolls, and Virginia’s recent history of mistakes and errors with data sharing protocols in particular,” a group of civil rights groups wrote to Youngkin and Susan Beals, who runs the state’s department of elections.Ohio’s secretary of state Frank LaRose has promoted his office’s efforts to remove 137 suspected non-citizens from the voter rolls using DMV data. Several naturalized citizens have come forward to say they were wrongly flagged, including one man who said his voter registration was challenged months after he was naturalized.“We know that the number of non-citizens who vote is a vanishingly small number based on all available evidence,” Huddleston said. “By inflating the issue and sweeping in very predictably naturalized citizens, the Alabama secretary of state and others are preventing naturalized citizens from being able to vote and creating this chilling effect.” More

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      Democrats Fear Safe Blue States Turning Purple as Biden Stays the Course

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      Lingering worries about President Biden’s age could make Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia competitive, party operatives believe.As President Biden insists he will stay in the presidential race, Democrats are growing increasingly alarmed that his presence on the ticket is transforming the political map, turning light-blue states into contested battlegrounds.Down-ballot Democrats, local elected officials and party strategists say Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia — all of which Mr. Biden won comfortably in 2020 — could be in play in November after his miserable debate performance last month.Some polls in these states suggest a tightening race between Mr. Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, with one showing a virtual tie in Virginia, which has not voted for a Republican for president since 2004, and another showing Mr. Trump squeaking ahead in New Hampshire, which has been in the Democratic column since 2000.On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report, a prominent elections forecaster, downgraded New Hampshire and Minnesota from “likely” wins for Mr. Biden to only leaning in his direction. And in a meeting at the White House last week, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico told Mr. Biden that she feared he would lose her state, according to two people briefed on her comments.The shakiness in the fringe battleground states is an alarming sign for Mr. Biden’s hopes in must-win contests that were already expected to be close, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. An expanding battleground map could force his campaign to divert resources away from the traditional swing states, where he has been falling further and further behind.But Mr. Biden has given no indication he is going anywhere, telling reporters at a high-profile news conference on Thursday that “I’m determined I’m running” and pushing back on his poor polling numbers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Trump’s Post-Debate Rally, Unease Among the Faithful

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      The day after President Biden melted down in Thursday’s prime-time debate, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia stood beside former President Donald J. Trump on a farm in Chesapeake, gushing.“This is the best Trump rally ever!”In the past, when it suited him, Mr. Youngkin kept his distance from Mr. Trump and his unpredictable behavior.Not now. Not with all this winning afoot.“Hello, Virginia,” Mr. Trump cooed as he took the stage before thousands of his supporters in what Republicans increasingly see as a winnable state. “Did anybody watch a thing called the debate?” He roared: “That was a big one.”On the surface, the rally in Chesapeake was a quick-turn victory lap after the debate and before the 2024 race hits a higher gear.“Democrats are in a lot of trouble, so I feel pretty good today,” said Jason Alter, 35, a dentist from Miami.But beneath the jubilation, there was a low-grade panic stirring. It was the kind of panic that one sometimes feels when everything in life seems to be going … a little too well.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More