A Virginia judge just threw out the redistricting referendum. Here's why it holds up.

The bottom line

Less than 24 hours after Virginia’s redistricting referendum passed by 1.4 percentage points, Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley declared the entire result void ab initio — from the beginning, as if it never happened. His order blocks the state from certifying the results. The grounds are procedural, specific, and legally coherent. This fight is not over, and I think we have a real shot.

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This article is based on analysis from Bearing Freedom. Watch the original video. This is commentary, not legal advice.

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What Judge Hurley actually ruled

Tazewell County Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley issued his final judgment on April 22, the morning after the April 21 vote. The ruling came in a case brought by the Republican National Committee challenging the constitutional validity of the referendum process itself. Hurley ruled that “any and all votes for or against the proposed constitutional amendment in the April 21, 2026 special election are ineffective,” declaring the referendum void ab initio.

The judge called the ballot question “flagrantly misleading” — which, as I wrote yesterday, it plainly was. The official text asked voters whether Virginia should be amended to “temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness.” No mention of eliminating the independent redistricting commission. No mention that the resulting map would produce a 10-1 Democratic delegation in a 52-46 state. No mention that “restore fairness” is a political argument, not a factual description of the amendment’s effect.

But Hurley’s ruling rests on more than the ballot language. He accepted several procedural arguments that strike at whether the referendum was constitutionally valid in the first place, regardless of how voters decided.

The procedural grounds

Virginia’s constitution imposes specific requirements on the amendment process. A proposed amendment must pass the General Assembly, then survive an intervening general election without modification, then pass the legislature a second time before going to voters. The sequencing exists to give voters a meaningful check: legislators who vote for the amendment face the electorate before the amendment is finalized, and voters know what they’re getting.

The plaintiffs argued that the General Assembly passed the redistricting amendment during a special session that was not convened for the purpose of considering constitutional amendments. Under Virginia law and precedent, special sessions have limited scope defined by the governor’s proclamation calling them. If the constitutional amendment was taken up outside the scope of a validly convened special session, the first legislative passage is defective — and without a valid first passage, there is no valid referendum.

Judge Hurley agreed. His ruling found that the amendment lacked a valid first passage, which means the entire process downstream of that defect is void. The referendum, the vote, the results — none of it counts.

Hurley also accepted the argument that Virginia’s requirement that proposed amendments be publicly posted for 90 days before the last general election preceding submission to voters was not met. This is a notice-and-transparency requirement built into the constitutional amendment process, and the plaintiffs argued the timeline was missed. Hurley ruled in their favor on this point as well, ordering that proper notice be posted for 90 days outside courthouse doors before any subsequent general assembly election.

There is also a sequencing argument regarding the two-session requirement that received favorable treatment in the ruling, though the special-session and 90-day notice grounds appear to be the primary holdings.

What this means for the legal path forward

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has been on the right side of the redistricting fight. It is the outgoing AG — Jay Jones, a Democrat who won the AG race in November — who confirmed his office would appeal Hurley’s ruling. That appeal goes to the Virginia Supreme Court.

This is where things get genuinely interesting. The Virginia Supreme Court had previously issued two orders during the pre-election litigation that allowed the referendum to proceed to a vote despite pending legal challenges. The court did not definitively rule on the merits of the procedural objections at that stage — it declined to block the vote, which is a different and lower bar than ruling on the underlying constitutional questions. Hurley’s final judgment on the merits is now a different posture before the appellate court.

Polymarket had the new maps being used at around 95% before the referendum passed. After Hurley’s ruling, that probability dropped roughly 15 percentage points in a single day. The people betting real money on this outcome understand something that a lot of political commentary has not fully processed: this is not a frivolous challenge being made by sore losers. These are specific, articulable violations of the Virginia constitution’s amendment procedure.

The betting market movement matters not because markets are always right but because they aggregate information from people with financial skin in the game. A 15-point move on a prediction market in one day is significant. It reflects a genuine reassessment of the legal strength of the pro-redistricting position.

Why I think the procedural arguments are stronger than people realize

Courts are often reluctant to overturn democratic results on the basis of ballot question wording. The threshold for “misleading” in the ballot context is high, and courts have historically deferred to legislative judgments about how to frame ballot questions even when the framing clearly favors one outcome. There is an argument that even a badly worded question reflects the voters’ decision and should be respected.

The procedural arguments do not run into this problem. Constitutional procedure is not subject to the same deference. If Virginia’s constitution requires that an amendment pass the legislature in a validly convened session, that requirement applies regardless of how popular the amendment’s subject matter is or how many people voted for it. Constitutional procedural rules exist to constrain the majoritarian process — to ensure that fundamental changes to the state’s governing document go through a deliberate, notice-heavy, multi-step process before they take effect. Majority opinion cannot cure a procedural defect, and courts are much more comfortable enforcing procedural constitutional requirements than second-guessing the adequacy of ballot question language.

This is why I think the special-session argument, if it holds up to appellate scrutiny, is potentially determinative. The question is not whether redistricting is popular or whether the amendment had majority support among voters. The question is whether the first legislative passage was constitutionally valid. If it wasn’t, the rest of the process is moot.

The timeline

The 2026 midterm election cycle creates real urgency. Congressional candidates need to know what districts they’re running in. Filing deadlines, primary schedules, and party conventions are all structured around a fixed map. The closer we get to those deadlines without legal resolution, the more pressure the Virginia Supreme Court faces to make a decision quickly.

I would expect the appellate process to move faster than normal given the electoral stakes. A Virginia Supreme Court ruling in the next month or two seems more likely than a prolonged briefing schedule. August 4 appears to be a significant filing deadline for the primary process, and I would be surprised if this case is still formally unresolved at that point.

There are also additional lawsuits pending beyond the RNC’s case that Hurley ruled on. Multiple plaintiffs have filed on related but distinct grounds, and some of those cases are already before the Virginia Supreme Court directly. The court may consolidate or address the related cases together when it takes up the appeal.

Where we stand

I want to be careful not to oversell this. Hurley’s ruling is a circuit court judgment from Tazewell County. It has significant legal force and it is grounded in specific constitutional arguments, but it will be appealed and the Virginia Supreme Court will have the final say. The court could overturn it. The procedural arguments are strong, in my view, but courts evaluating those arguments could reach different conclusions about what the special-session record actually shows.

What I can say is that the legal fight is genuinely live. This is not a desperate Hail Mary. Hurley’s ruling rests on multiple independent grounds, any one of which is sufficient to invalidate the referendum if it survives appeal. The momentum in the prediction markets is real. The attorney general’s office will make the best arguments it can before the Supreme Court.

Yesterday I said we lost the battle but not the war. Today that framing looks more accurate than I expected it to be 24 hours later. The redistricting amendment squeaked through a low-turnout special election by 1.4 points on the strength of a misleading ballot question and a massive spending advantage. A circuit court judge looked at how the process was conducted and said it was void from the start.

The Virginia Supreme Court will decide what happens next. I think the procedural arguments give us a legitimate shot. And right now, a legitimate shot is more than we had yesterday morning.