(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that records from the Virginia Department of Elections show the commonwealth cancelled 6,531 “declared noncitizen” voter registrations between June 2024 and June 2026.
The Virginia Department of Elections produced records in response to the below June 2026 Judicial Watch request:
Pursuant to Section 8(i) of the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”), Judicial Watch, Inc. respectfully requests from your office all pertinent records in the past two years concerning “the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency” of the Virginia official list of eligible voters. Specifically, Judicial Watch requests the following:
1. All records concerning the names and addresses of registrants removed from the official list of eligible voters pursuant to Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-427(B)(iii) and Va. Code Ann. § 24.2-427.
2. All records concerning all voter registrations that may not to be United States citizens by reason of reports from the Department of Motor Vehicles or from the Department of Elections based on information received from the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program (SAVE Program).
3. All ERIC reports, data, match lists, or other records received from or related to the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) system concerning potential voter deaths, change-of-address notifications, or other eligibility issues (including any associated processing, verification, or removal actions taken by the Department of Elections in response to such ERIC reports).
No voting histories were produced for the cancelled declared noncitizen registrations.
According to an April 2026, Virginia Attorney General letter:
DMV [Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles] creates a list of “all persons who have indicated a noncitizen status” when applying for or renewing a license, or identification document. In practice, DMV compiles a list of any individual who checks “no” in response to the question “Are you a citizen?” in an online portal. There are reports that this method has resulted in flagging eligible citizens due to inadvertent user error. DMV furnishes this list of self-attested noncitizens to ELECT daily. ELECT then electronically matches the DMV list against the voter registration list, and transmits, for each match, information from the DMV list to the appropriate registrar. After independently confirming that the individual flagged by DMV matches a voter registration record, registrars must send a notice of intent to cancel, allowing the person 14 days to submit a sworn statement confirming citizenship. If the person does not respond and confirm their citizenship, the registrar must cancel their registration. For clarity, in this opinion, this second program is called “Self-Attestation Removals.”
Also in April 2026, Virginia entered into a settlement with leftist groups in which Virginia agreed to pause the program to remove declared noncitizens from voting rolls for the 90-day period before federal elections. (The Attorney General letter cited above confirms this new policy.)
18 U.S.C. § 1015(f) — makes it a crime to knowingly make a false claim of U.S. citizenship in order to register to vote or vote in any federal, state, or local election. 18 U.S.C. § 611 — is the direct prohibition on aliens voting in any election for federal office
“It is disturbing beyond belief that as many as 6,531 noncitizens were registered to vote in Virginia. Judicial Watch is demanding more details and so should federal law enforcement, especially as Virginia is set to stop removing declared noncitizens from the rolls in the run-up to the November election,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “These Virginia numbers show that the New Jersey noncitizen voter scandal is just the tip of the iceberg and is a national crisis.”
Judicial Watch is a national leader in election integrity and voting rights litigation, with a record of successful lawsuits enforcing constitutional redistricting standards and cleaning voter rolls nationwide.
Judicial Watch’s lawsuits and legal actions have caused the removal of six million ineligible names from voter lists nationwide, including from Oregon, Colorado, Kentucky and New York City. Judicial Watch legal pressure also resulted in voter roll clean-ups in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ohio.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced its intention to file a motion to intervene in Judicial Watch’s federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a California political candidate and a state political party against the State of California due to its failure to maintain accurate voter rolls as required by the NVRA.
A federal court in Illinois ruled that Judicial Watch’s lawsuit to force the cleaning of voter rolls may proceed in that state.
In January 2026, in a historic case filed by Judicial Watch, the Supreme Court decided 7-2 in favor of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors who were before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law allowing the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day.
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