Virginia’s highest court decided this week that a congressional redistricting plan approved by voters cannot advance due to a technicality.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on May 8 that lawmakers violated procedural requirements when they placed a redistricting amendment on the ballot.
The court’s ruling trumps an April 21 special election in which voters approved the Congressional redistricting by 51.6 to 48.3 percent.
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void,” Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote in the decision, which added that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
Attorney General Jay Jones accused the Virginia Supreme Court of putting politics before the rule of law by overturning the April 21 special election on redistricting.
"My team is carefully reviewing this unprecedented order and we are evaluating every legal pathway forward to defend the will of the people and protect the integrity of Virginia’s elections," Jones said in a statement.
At the core of the dispute was Virginia Code § 30-13, a statute that requires a proposed constitutional amendment to be posted at the front door of the courthouse at least 90 days before the election.Attorney Thomas McCarthy, who argued on behalf of the Republican appellees, said that a clerk’s failure to post notice of the vote invalidated the legitimacy of voter approval, while attorney Matthew Seligman, who argued on behalf of the lawmakers, said that a constitutional basis for the publication requirement was repealed in 1971.
Other arguments included whether the legislature’s approval of the redistricting amendment was invalid because early voting had already begun for the 2025 general election.
Seligman told the panel of judges that the election should be defined precisely to mean the Tuesday of the general election, while McCarthy argued that the election should apply to the span of time during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia.
The ruling against the approved redistricting amendment is a sign of Republican momentum heading into the November midterm elections, according to National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson.
“We’re on offense, and we’re going to win,” Hudson said.
The redistricting plan that the court invalidated would have changed Virginia’s Congressional balance to 10 Democrats and 1 Republican.
The state’s current delegation split is 6 Democrats and 5 Republicans.
"This decision silences the voices of the millions of Virginians who cast their ballots in every corner of the Commonwealth, and it fuels the growing fears across our nation about the state of our democracy," Jones added.