The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case that could determine how close to a federal election states may conduct mass purges of voter rolls, accepting a Republican National Committee request in a dispute over Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship voting requirements, NPR reported. The case, RNC v. Mi Familia Vota, centers on the scope of a provision in the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that bans any program with the purpose of systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of Election Day — a period known as the quiet period.
For this fall’s midterm elections, the quiet period begins Aug. 5. The law applies to 44 states and the District of Columbia. Congress included the ban to ensure eligible voters who are mistakenly removed from rolls have enough time to correct errors and cast ballots, NPR reported. A decision in the case is not expected until next year, according to NPR.
The legal fight over the quiet period’s scope has intensified since the Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued a brief, unexplained ruling before the 2024 election that allowed a Virginia program for removing suspected noncitizens to continue during that year’s quiet period. Lower federal courts had found the Virginia program likely violated the NVRA. Maureen Edobor, an assistant law professor at Washington and Lee University, told NPR that the 2024 ruling is playing a huge role in testing the limits of the protection.
The legal fight over Virginia’s program ended in a settlement this year, and the state’s Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, issued an executive order requiring any removal program to be completed 90 days before a federal election, NPR reported. But the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling left open questions about what the high court would allow during the current quiet period, according to Dan Tokaji, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School.
Republican state officials in Arizona and Ohio are advancing two main arguments to reinterpret the quiet period, both first put forward by Virginia Republicans in 2024, NPR reported. They argue that the ban does not apply to noncitizens, contending that the NVRA’s language prohibiting the systematic removal of “ineligible voters” does not forbid programs targeting noncitizens specifically. They also argue that their removal efforts are individualized, not systematic, even when based on database comparisons.
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments in a 2025 ruling now under Supreme Court review, according to NPR. The panel’s majority found that Arizona’s program for canceling registrations based on citizenship status violates the NVRA because it authorizes systematic cancellations within the quiet period. The ruling cited a 2014 decision by an 11th Circuit panel determining that individualized removals based on specific information would not be banned.
Edobor told NPR that eligible voters should check their registration status before state deadlines, adding that the responsibility on voters is increasing in the months before a federal election.