By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday allowed Virginia to return to office. purge of voter registrations which, according to the State, aims to prevent people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

The High Court, despite dissents from the three liberal justices, granted an emergency appeal from Virginia’s Republican administration led by Governor Glenn Youngkin. The court provided no justification for its action, which is typical of emergency appeals.

The justices granted Virginia’s appeal after a federal judge found the state had illegally purged more than 1,600 voter registrations over the past two months. A federal appeals court previously allowed the judge’s order to stand.

Such a vote is rare in American electionsbut the specter of immigrants voting illegally was a major element of the debate. political messages this year from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans.

Trump criticized the previous decision, calling it a “completely unacceptable travesty” on social media. “Only American citizens should be allowed to vote,” Trump wrote.

The Justice Department and a coalition of private groups sued the state in early October, arguing that Virginia election officials, acting on an executive order issued in August by Youngkin, removed names from voter rolls in violation of the federal election law.

The National Voter Registration Act requires a A 90-day “period of silence” before the elections for the maintenance of electoral rolls so that legitimate voters are not removed from the rolls due to bureaucratic errors or last-minute errors that cannot be quickly corrected.

Youngkin issued his order on August 7, the 90th day before the elections. This required daily checks of state Department of Motor Vehicles data against voter rolls to identify people who are not U.S. citizens.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said election officials could still remove names on an individual basis, but not through a systematic purge. Court records indicate that at least some of the people whose records were deleted are U.S. citizens.

Giles had ordered the state to notify affected voters and local registrars by Wednesday that registrations had been reinstated.

Youngkin said the Supreme Court’s action was “a victory for common sense and electoral fairness.”

“Clean voter rolls are an important part of the overall approach we take to ensuring the fairness of our elections,” he said in a written statement.