The Virginia Supreme Court heard a high-stakes challenge to a referendum that handed redistricting power back to lawmakers, and justices pressed the pro-referendum side hard over process, timing, and whether early voting counts as part of an election; the case centers on whether procedural missteps before voting tainted the amendment and whether the resulting map is legally valid.
The hearing at the state Supreme Court focused less on the politics of the map and more on how the referendum reached voters. Several justices asked pointed questions about whether the General Assembly followed its own rules before sending the amendment to the ballot. Counsel for the amendment acknowledged that last week’s “yes” tally does not resolve the constitutional issue the court must decide.
At issue is a change that moved redistricting authority from a nonpartisan commission to the legislature, with early returns showing a roughly 51 to 48.5 split in favor of the amendment. The legal fight began before early voting even started, and one core dispute is whether the legislature’s timing complied with the state constitution’s requirement for an intervening election. The sequence of events and the start of early voting are now central to whether the amendment was validly advanced.
Outside counsel for the pro-amendment side faced skeptical questioning after being pressed to admit the General Assembly did not strictly follow its own processes for advancing the referendum. Those concessions opened the door for the opposing side to argue the legislature short-circuited the constitutionally required sequence. The court spent much of the hearing unpacking those procedural facts rather than debating the fairness of any particular map.
One of the most combustible issues was how the word election should be interpreted. Counsel for the amendment insisted that Election Day is a single day in November and sought to treat early voting as separate from the election itself. Several justices pushed back, noting that voting starts well before that one day and that millions of ballots may be cast during the early voting window, which could make the timing requirement impossible to meet if early voting counts.
That argument produced an unusually blunt line of questioning about whether the legislature’s sequence of votes actually occurred before or after the start of the intervening election. If the court accepts that early voting begins the intervening election, then the legislature would have failed to pass the amendment prior to that election and the procedure would be unconstitutional. If Election Day alone counts, the pro-amendment argument gains traction, though it stretches common understanding of when voting occurs.
The opposition told a human story to illustrate the constitutional harm, describing a voter who cast an early ballot for a local candidate only to learn later that the same lawmakers pushed a last-minute amendment that would shift redistricting power. They argued that voters casting ballots before the amendment was even proposed were effectively disenfranchised from weighing the change with full knowledge. The point was procedural: the people must have the chance to vote on changes to the constitution with adequate notice and within the proper sequence.
Dems argue Election Day is a single day, and doesn’t include early voting, in order to try to circumvent their unconstitutional maneuvers.
SCOVA HEARING: Sounds like we’re on solid ground. Justices didn’t like that early voting had started prior to the first passage of the amendment by the general assembly. Also, made it clear that what happened last Tuesday has no bearing on the case before them today.
VA Constitution requires an “intervening election” between the first passage of the bill by the general assembly and the second passage of the constitutional amendment language by the general assembly.
The funny part is Dems are now arguing that Nov. 2025 was the intervening election. They argue Election Day is only on the first Tuesday in November, and early voting doesn’t count as part of the election! Can’t make this up.🤣
The Dems need early voting to be a single day now, not 45 days, for this to work. If it’s a single day, then it doesn’t matter that early voting started before the Dems passed the amendment in the general assembly the first time, because they did it “before” the election.
If Election Day is not a single day, and the first day of early voting is the beginning of the “intervening election,” then the general assembly did NOT pass the amendment language before the intervening election. The election had already started and millions of votes had been cast by then in late October.
We’ll wait to see what the Court says. I’m sure they won’t delay very long in their ruling.
During rebuttal, counsel for the opposition recounted testimony about voters who had no idea the amendment was being rushed through, reinforcing the argument that the amendment was not presented to the electorate in the constitutionally required way. That narrative sought to move the debate from abstract timing rules to the practical consequences for real voters. The court appeared attentive to both the legal text and the fairness implications of the process described.
The oral arguments lasted roughly an hour and the justices then retired to deliberate whether the amendment’s path to the ballot met constitutional standards. Their decision will determine not only whether the new map stands but also whether the legislature can reclaim redistricting authority under the steps it followed. The stakes are significant for representation in the commonwealth and could set a precedent on how timing and early voting interact with constitutional amendment procedures.
Observers noted the political irony that this procedural fight landed against a backdrop of leadership that campaigned on opposing gerrymandering while overseeing a change that critics call a power grab. For now, the court alone holds the power to decide whether the process was lawful and whether the referendum’s results map onto a constitutionally valid amendment. The waiting period ends when the court issues its ruling on these core procedural questions.
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