Virginia’s highest court issued a stay Wednesday that allows early voting for the redistricting referendum to begin on Friday in Tazewell County, with less than 48 hours until the polls are slated to open for early voting.
The Virginia Supreme Court’s decision has allowed the state Department of Elections and Tazewell County to move forward with preparations for the April 21 referendum. The Department of Elections will update election officials Thursday with new information and action items, said department spokesperson Andrea Gaines.
Tazewell County had been the only locality that was set to sit out of the referendum after Circuit Judge Jack Hurley Jr. had ruled earlier in the day to maintain a previous order that barred the county from administering the election.
The state Supreme Court order has set in motion a flurry of activity in the county registrar’s office as officials attempt to make up for lost time.
Upon hearing the state Supreme Court’s decision, Tazewell County Registrar Brian Earls sprang into action to resume preparations for early voting, and he said he and his chief deputy planned to work into Wednesday evening. Hurley had ruled on Feb. 19 to halt election preparations in the county, and officials said Tuesday that they were more than a week behind in their efforts to prepare for early voting as a result.
“I feel confident we can be ready for in-person early voting to start on Friday morning. The preparations for absentee ballots by mail will take longer to prepare, but if we miss that deadline on Friday, it will not be for lack of effort,” Earls said.
Tazewell County Attorney Aaron Gillespie, who represented the registrar and the county board of elections in the court case, said that the elections officials “weathered this storm with resolve and perseverance.”
“I will rest easier knowing that the residents of Tazewell County will now get to vote along with all the other residents of the great commonwealth of Virginia,” Gillespie said, before issuing a stark rebuke.
“This process, as created by the General Assembly, has turned into a circus without a tent. The parties involved in this case still do not have a clear exit sign in sight. But for now, I hope residents see this as a wake-up call to go and exercise the sacred right of voting,” he said.
Lawmakers respond to the ruling
“We felt confident that the voters of the commonwealth of Virginia will have the final say in determining whether we would combat the overreach that’s coming from Donald Trump in trying to rig the elections,” said House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, during an impromptu press conference after the Supreme Court decision Wednesday.
Virginia Democrats have called the redistricting effort necessary, after Republican President Donald Trump called on conservative-led states to change their congressional maps in favor of GOP candidates ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The state Supreme Court said in its decision Wednesday that it plans to review the cases appealed up to the high court regarding the redistricting effort after the elections, but that voting must move forward in the meantime.
House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, saw positive news in the court’s order.
“The Supreme Court is really taking seriously some allegations that we raised on how they rushed so quickly to get this constitutional amendment,” he said. “They are concerned, they are looking at it, so I believe this is a good decision for our side.”
If voters approve the constitutional amendment but the court finds the redistricting effort unconstitutional, the state Supreme Court would likely invalidate the referendum, Kilgore said.
A messy and unprecedented legal landscape
Hurley ruled in January in favor of a complaint filed by a group of Republican state lawmakers to temporarily halt the redistricting effort. That ruling was appealed by Democrats to the state Supreme Court, which determined in mid-February that the April 21 referendum can move forward as it prepares to hear the appeal after the election.
Then, in February, a second complaint was filed in Tazewell County by the National Republican Congressional Committee, other conservative groups and two of Virginia’s Republican congressmen. Hurley again ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, who requested an emergency injunction ahead of the March 13 hearing. His second ruling was a more sweeping order that told state officials to stop “administering, preparing for, taking any action to further the procedure for the referendum or otherwise move forward with causing an election” on the grounds that the legislation behind the redistricting is riddled with legal problems. The state Supreme Court issued a stay of that ruling Wednesday.
Registrars across Virginia received communication from the state Department of Elections in late February, after Hurley’s second ruling, which said, upon further review, the order applied only to the named defendants, including local election officials in Tazewell County. The prior request to pause ballot issuance was withdrawn for other localities, but remained in place in Tazewell, until Wednesday.
Gillespie had asked for a temporary suspension of Hurley’s order to allow the county and employees of the registrar’s office to continue preparations to start early voting in the county. Hurley had denied Gillespie’s petition in a Wednesday ruling mere hours before the state Supreme Court issued its stay.