The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear RNC v. Mi Familia Vota, a case that could narrow a federal ban on states' mass purges of voter rolls within 90 days before a federal election.
Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, election officials are supposed to finish any program for systematically removing ineligible voters 90 days before Election Day in federal races; that deadline applies to 44 states plus Washington, D.C., and Congress passed the ban so eligible voters who are mistakenly purged would have time to resolve issues and cast ballots.
The case touches an Arizona requirement for U.S. citizenship documents when registering to vote, and a decision in the case is not expected until next year.
Republican state officials in Arizona and Ohio are arguing the quiet period does not apply to noncitizens and that their efforts are individualized rather than systematic, and the Trump administration has pressed similar lines of argument while suing multiple states to obtain voter-roll data to check against the federal SAVE database.
A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in 2025 ruled that Arizona's program violates the NVRA because it "authorizes systematic cancellation of registrations within 90 days before a federal election," U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald Gould wrote, citing a 2014 ruling by an 11th U.S. Circuit panel.
In 2024, multiple federal judges found Virginia likely violated the NVRA by setting up a systematic voter removal program targeting "non-citizen registration," and on the first day of the quiet period the state's Republican governor at the time issued an executive order calling for "daily updates" to voter rolls to remove people who could not verify U.S. citizenship with the Department of Motor Vehicles; the program removed eligible voters from the state's list.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority allowed that Virginia purge to continue with no explanation, and the legal fight over the program later reached a settlement while the state's current governor, Abigail Spanberger, issued an executive order echoing the NVRA's requirement that removal programs be completed 90 days before a federal election.
"This is part of what has come to be known as the 'shadow docket,'" said Dan Tokaji, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School. "It's worrisome because it suggests there may not be a remedy, at least in federal court, if a state unlawfully purges voters from its rolls during the period that it's not supposed to be doing that under the National Voter Registration Act."
Justice Department attorneys wrote in a June court filing seeking Georgia's voter information that the quiet period "would not prevent a state like Georgia from investigating and removing ineligible people in an individualized fashion if the United States alerted the State of the possibility that people on their rolls were ineligible to vote."
Supporters of removal programs note that eligible voters wrongly kicked off lists can re-register until Election Day and cast provisional ballots, but same-day registration is not available in more than half the country and provisional voting "comes with a risk of not getting counted because of clerical errors," and "voters really have to take great responsibility to ensure their information is up to date," Maureen Edobor, an assistant law professor at Washington and Lee University, said.