WASHINGTON – The conservative majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday authorized Virginia to resume its purge of voter registrations which, according to the State, aims to prevent people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

A Virginian, whose registration was canceled despite living in the state all her life, called the purge a “very nasty October surprise.”

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.

Youngkin said voters who feel they have been improperly removed from the rolls can still vote in the election because Virginia registers same day.

“And so there is the ultimate guarantee in Virginia, no one is prevented from voting, and therefore I encourage every citizen to go out and vote,” Youngkin told reporters.

This option was also highlighted by the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic candidate for the White House.

“Every eligible voter has the right to vote and have their vote counted, and this decision changes nothing,” campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak said in a statement. “Our campaign will ensure that every eligible voter can vote. Non-citizen voting remains illegal under federal law.

Rina Shaw, 22, of Chesterfield, Virginia, said she was born in Virginia, had lived in the state her entire life and had never left the United States.

Shaw thinks she may have forgotten to check a citizenship box on a form when she was updating her voter registration at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles while getting her learner’s permit.

“My first reaction was that it was just ridiculous and it should not have been allowed in October, especially in October. This should have happened six months before the election rather than just the day before,” Shaw said.

She planned to vote in early voting Wednesday and said she still found the error troubling. Shaw said his voter registration has now been reinstated.

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 November 5 election. This required daily checks of state Department of Motor Vehicles data against voter rolls to identify people who are not U.S. citizens.

Protect Democracy, one of the groups behind the lawsuit, cited media interviews with other voters as showing that the Youngkin government’s purge removed American citizens from the voting rolls.

Nadra Wilson, who lives in Lynchburg, Virginia, is one example. NPR she was dragged into the purge. “I was born in Brooklyn, New York, I’m a citizen,” Wilson said, before showing her U.S. passport as proof of her citizenship.

Project Democracy said in a statement that “this program suppresses eligible voters. Virginia has presented no evidence of non-citizen participation in the election. Because there isn’t one. And it was actually eligible VA voters who were caught in the middle of this election subversion scheme.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said election officials could still remove names on an individual basis, but not through a systematic purge.

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

Nearly 6 million Virginians are registered to vote.

In a similar lawsuit in Alabama, a federal judge this month ordered the state to restore the eligibility of more than 3,200 voters who had been deemed ineligible non-citizens. Testimony from state officials in the case showed that about 2,000 of the 3,251 voters rendered inactive were actually legally registered citizens.

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Lavoie reported from Richmond. Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Virginia, and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.