Virginia admits thousands of voters wrongly purged days before election

Voting rights groups decry error days before elections that will determine which party controls the state legislature

Virginia election officials wrongly removed almost 3,400 eligible voters from the state's voter rolls, a significant error that has caused alarm among voting rights groups just days before critical state elections that will determine which party controls the state legislature.

Officials announced the number of voters affected by the purge on Friday - more than 10 times the number of people they had initially said were affected. Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for the governor, Glenn Youngkin, had told the Washington Post on 6 October that at least 270 people had been wrongly removed and that officials didn't expect that number to rise much. Officials declined to provide updates on the number affected until Friday, when they announced that the actual number was nearly 3,400" (they did not provide an exact figure). VPM, Virginia's NPR affiliate, first reported on the issue in September.