Virginia begged the Supreme Court on Monday to step in and allow the state to carry out its removal of 1,600 names of suspected noncitizens from its voting rolls.

Lower courts have ruled that Virginia’s attempt to purge the names violates a 1993 federal law that bars systematic voter-roll cleaning in the 90 days before a federal election — what’s known as the “quiet period.”

But state Attorney General Jason Miyares says that law applied to eligible voters, not to ineligible people such as those lacking citizenship.

He said the lower court judges were wrong to order the names be added back onto the rolls just days before the election. He asked the justices to step in and stay the lower court rulings.

“Not only will the Commonwealth of Virginia be irreparably harmed absent a stay, so will its voters and the public at large. The injunction requires Virginia to restore over 1,600 self-identified noncitizens to Virginia’s voter rolls,” Mr. Miyares, a Republican, argued in his petition to the high court.

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