The attempt to shut conservatives out of the midterm elections in Virginia is becoming the most consequential redistricting fight in the country.
The newly approved map is devastating to the integrity of the vote – giving 51 percent of the electorate 91 percent of the representation in Congress – moving the state further left than California.
Virginia’s Constitution is not ambiguous – it sets strict guardrails for how it can be changed, ensuring voters – not politicians – have the final say. Yet in advancing HJR 6007, those safeguards appear to have been bypassed. These are the issues at the heart of this challenge – and they go directly to whether the process was constitutional.
The “Intervening Election” Requirement Was Not Met
Virginia’s Constitution is explicit: A proposed constitutional amendment must be “referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates.” That language exists for a reason. It ensures that voters – not just legislators – have a say before their fundamental law is changed. An election must actually intervene between the two legislative votes. Here, it did not.
The General Assembly took its first vote on HJR 6007 on October 31, 2025. But here is the problem: Early voting for the 2025 House of Delegates elections began 43 days earlier on September 19. By the time legislators voted, over one million Virginians – approximately 40 percent of the total electorate for that cycle – had already cast their ballots. As our brief argues, it would be constitutionally absurd to claim that no election had yet “occurred” while 40 percent of it was already complete.
Virginia law has long authorized early voting, and those ballots are just as lawful and just as final as votes cast on Election Day. To pretend the election had not begun is to disenfranchise – retroactively – every Virginian who voted early. The Virginia Constitution cannot permit that result. The ACLJ has made this precise argument in federal court as well: In our amicus brief in Bost v. Illinois, we argued that manipulating election deadlines to suit partisan convenience strikes at the uniformity and finality that constitutional elections require.
Take action with the ACLJ to protect elections. Sign our petition: Defend Election Integrity and the Constitution.
The 90-Day Requirement Was Blatantly Ignored
Even if one were to grant, for the sake of argument, that the already-begun 2025 election somehow qualified as an “intervening election,” the amendment still fails. Virginia’s Constitution mandates that a proposed amendment may not be submitted to voters “sooner than ninety days after final passage by the General Assembly.” This is mandatory.
HJR 6007 received final passage on January 16, 2026. Early voting for the April referendum began on March 6 – just 49 days later, which is not close to 90 days. It is not even close to close.
The Ballot Language Misled Virginia Voters
Virginia has the oldest continuous tradition of written constitutional governance in the Western world. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted in June 1776 – weeks before the Declaration of Independence – established that all power is derived from the people, not from a legislative majority misleading voters.
The constitutional violations do not stop at process. The ballot itself was misleading. Voters were asked whether they supported a measure to “restore fairness” to Virginia elections – language that presupposes the current maps are unfair, which is both legally unsupported and factually wrong. Virginia’s current congressional map was drawn by a bipartisan commission system that Virginians themselves created by referendum in 2020. It has produced congressional delegations that closely track the statewide popular vote. There is nothing to “restore.”
More troubling still, a voter reading only “restore fairness” on the ballot had no way to know they were effectively voting to suspend the bipartisan Virginia Redistricting Commission – a constitutional body the people themselves created. The ACLJ has heard directly from its supporters in Virginia who were confused by the ballot language and had no understanding of what they were actually voting on. That is precisely the outcome the Constitution’s submission requirements are designed to prevent.
What Happens Next
The Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments in one of the parallel cases earlier this week. The next day, it issued an order allowing the lower court’s injunction prohibiting the certification of the redistricting scheme to stay in place as that case continues on appeal. This is a positive signal that the Court may not allow the amendment to stand, and may instead determine that constitutional violations render it null and void. The stakes could not be higher. If the Court were to allow this amendment to stand despite these compounding constitutional violations, it would signal that procedural safeguards are optional – to be honored when convenient, and discarded when they become inconvenient. That is a precedent no one who values constitutional governance should want.
The ACLJ has long stood at the forefront of defending election integrity. In Beals v. Virginia Coalition for Immigration Rights, we filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Supreme Court defending Virginia’s constitutional authority to maintain accurate voter rolls and ensure only eligible citizens participate in elections – because the integrity of the ballot box begins long before Election Day. We have consistently argued, in courtrooms across this country, that elections must be conducted according to the rule of law. That principle does not change because it is inconvenient for one party or the other.
The litigation is moving quickly, and our team is preparing to take action by filing an amicus brief at the first opportunity. Take action with the ACLJ to protect elections. Sign our petition: Defend Election Integrity and the Constitution.