State Board of Elections
Virginia's five-member, governor-appointed state elections board.
Virginia's State Board of Elections was barred on 22 April 2026 from certifying a redistricting referendum voters had passed the day before, leaving the 3 November congressional races on the existing district lines.
Last refreshed: 1 October 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Why is Virginia's elections board barred from certifying a vote Virginians already took?
Timeline for State Board of Elections
Virginia map vote passes, then voided
US Midterms 2026Background
The State Board of Elections is Virginia's central election authority. It supervises local registrars, certifies results and oversees ballot access for state and federal contests.
Under the Code of Virginia it has five members, appointed by the governor and confirmed by the General Assembly. Three must come from the party that won the most votes at the last governor's election, and the runner-up party must also hold seats, so its partisan balance shifts with the governorship.
Its certification power put it at the centre of the 2026 redistricting fight. A court order on 22 April stopped it from certifying the referendum result, the step that would have put new districts into effect.
The board cannot certify the vote
Virginians approved a Mid-decade redistricting referendum by 50.7% to 49.3% on 21 April. Within 24 hours Judge Hurley ruled that The House bill which put the question on the ballot was invalid from the start, and permanently enjoined the board from certifying the result.
That left the board holding a vote it could not act on while the Supreme Court of Virginia, which heard the appeal on 27 April, weighed the case against the 25 May candidate filing Deadline. The state's highest court went on to rule against the referendum, so the board is administering November's congressional contests on the map the referendum sought to replace.