The request comes after a federal appeals court unanimously upheld a federal judge's order restoring the registrations of those 1,600 voters, whom the judge said were illegally purged from the rolls under an executive order by the state's Republican governor.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin says he ordered the daily removals in an effort to keep noncitizens from voting.
But on Friday, U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said Youngkin's program was illegal under federal law because it systematically purged voters during a 90-day “quiet period” ahead of the November election.
Youngkin said he was simply upholding a state law that requires Virginia to cancel noncitizens' registration.
On Sunday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, sided with the judge who ordered the restoration of voters' registrations.
The appeals court said Virginia is wrong to assert that it is being forced to restore 1,600 noncitizens to the voter rolls. Instead, the appeals court ruled that Virginia's process for removing voters established no proof that those purged were actually noncitizens.
Youngkin's executive order, issued in August, required daily checks of data from the Department of Motor Vehicles against voter rolls to identify noncitizens.
State officials said any voter identified as a noncitizen 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.
