Photo: Moment RF
Virginians recently voted to redistrict their state with a dramatic 10-1 Democratic advantage—the latest in a series of redistricting moves by various states that was kicked off by Texas last summer. Unfortunately for Virginia Democrats, their new maps have effectively been blocked.
At issue here is how Virginia Democrats went about creating their new congressional maps. They opted instead to create temporary maps via a constitutional amendment, which then went before voters for approval. Yesterday evening, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley blocked the referendum results from being certified.
This follows complaints from Virginia Republicans about the referendum. They argued—and Hurley agreed—that putting the referendum on the ballot violated the Virginia State Constitution for a number of reasons, namely that it sidestepped a requirement that constitutional amendments be voted on no fewer than 90 days after passage.
According to Virginia conservative activist and podcast host Jesse Hughes, “The time between when this was passed and when early voting began was 40 days. They completely destroyed the process.”
Hughes also says Virginia constitutional amendments typically have to be passed by two separate legislatures before being put to a referendum vote.
Hughes block-walked in the short campaign to stop this referendum from passing and says that, from what he saw, it wasn’t very popular. “Anyone with even a small bit of common sense can look at this thing and say that this thing is crooked,” he said. “There’s no way that this thing should have even been on a ballot.”
The referendum passed by a very slim 3% margin—a mere 89,092-vote difference. Many of those votes were via mail-in ballots, which President Trump has already raised questions about, saying on his social media platform Truth Social: “A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!”
Democratic Virginia AG Jay Jones has vowed to appeal the blocking of the maps, and Jesse Hughes predicts that appeal could go all the way to the United States Supreme Court. He said he’s hopeful that the ruling blocking the certification of the referendum will hold until then.