Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting referendum 50.7 to 49.3 percent on Tuesday 21 April, with roughly 2.5 million ballots cast1. Within 24 hours, Judge Hurley ruled the authorising House bill void ab initio and permanently enjoined the State Board of Elections from certifying the result. The referendum had been scheduled by the General Assembly to authorise redrawing Virginia's eleven congressional districts; pre-vote polling had run 52 to 47 percent in favour.
The mechanism matters because Virginia is the last live state track for Democratic mid-decade redistricting this cycle. Maryland's bill died on 14 April when the state Senate ended its session without a vote. California requires an independent commission. Florida is Republican-controlled. The injunction does not strike the referendum on substance; Hurley voided the legislative procedure that put the question on the ballot in the first place, leaving the vote itself technically valid but unable to take legal effect.
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones intends to defend the referendum on appeal in Scott v. McDougle, the Virginia Supreme Court case heard at oral argument on Monday 27 April. Counter-view from Republican-aligned plaintiffs: the procedural defect is real, the injunction will hold, and a voter-approved redistricting referendum can be nullified on legislative process grounds without re-running the vote. That posture is now precedent in Virginia state court whether or not the Supreme Court agrees, because the trial-court ruling stands until reversed.
