FALLS CHURCH, Va. — (AP) — Phoebe Taylor was all ready to vote in Tuesday’s election. She even knew her precinct number in the city of Richmond off the top of her head.
So it came as a shock when a reporter informed the naturalized U.S. citizen, originally from Great Britain, that she’d been purged from Virginia’s rolls, along with about 1,600 others in the last two months, in an attempt prevent noncitizens from casting ballots.
“It’s irritating to me,” said Taylor, 26. “I wouldn’t even have known.”
Taylor is among 1,600 individuals whose voting status remained up in the air until Wednesday, when the U.S. Supreme Court said Virginia could go forward with its original plan to remove those voters from the rolls.
Last week, a federal judge and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appealshad ordered Virginia to restore the voter registrations. They ruled that Virginia had illegally purged the voters during a 90-day quiet period …