Former Republican Del. William Fralin of Roanoke said he hadn’t heard of Democracy and Justice PAC until he was accused in social media posts online of donating a large sum of money to the organization.
The PAC became widely known after a mailer landed in mailboxes across the state over the weekend that Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said misuses imagery from the Civil Rights Movement and invokes the Jim Crow era.
The mailer, paid for by Democracy and Justice PAC, appears to target Black voters and urges them to vote against the April 21 redistricting referendum.
“Just like Jim Crow, they want to silence your voice,” is printed on one side of the mailer, along with images of Ku Klux Klan members and police chasing young Black girls.
The mailer has seen sharp backlash in social media posts, with internet sleuths trying to figure out who or what funded the organization that sent them. Statewide groups and elected officials, including the NAACP Virginia State Conference, have released statements condemning the material printed on the cardstock as offensive and racist.
State code requires print media advertisements to accurately display the sponsor of the campaign material on those ads. But searches for Democracy and Justice PAC on the state campaign reporting website or the Federal Elections Commission website came up empty.
A copy of the PAC’s statement of organization, provided to Cardinal News by its treasurer, Christopher Woodfin, on Monday afternoon, listed former Republican Del. A.C. Cordoza of Hampton as its chairman. The document was amended to add Cordoza as the PAC’s chair after the controversy broke, according to the PAC’s treasurer, Christopher Woodfin. Woodfin insisted that Cordoza was the PAC’s chair “from the start,” however. Cordoza is African American.
The lack of publicly available information has led some on social media to tie the PAC to another similarly named organization: Justice for Democracy PAC. A campaign report for Justice for Democracy PAC, which was formed less than a week ago, shows one large donation from one person — $10,000 from Fralin. There’s one problem, though: Fralin said he knew nothing about that PAC, or the PAC responsible for the mailers.
“I disavow that ad, and I think it’s misleading,” Fralin said in an interview Monday after looking at the mailer.
“I gave $10,000 to the group I’m a part of, the No Gerrymandering Virginia deal, and somehow it’s been misreported,” he said.
Misattributed funds and confusion
“It looks to me like they’re trying to mislead people,” Fralin said of the mailer. “I knew immediately it wasn’t something I wanted to be involved in.”
Fralin hasn’t been shy about his feelings about the redistricting effort. He penned editorials in the Richmond Times-Dispatch against it and got involved in No Gerrymandering Virginia, a group led by Democrat Brian Cannon.
“I’ve got a problem with passing a constitutional amendment in a special session. I’ve got a problem with passing a constitutional amendment in a special session where the rules did not allow for it. I’ve got a problem with passing a constitutional amendment after a million people have voted already,” Fralin said in an interview with Cardinal News. “I’ve got a problem with the [referendum] wording, that actually could have been amended or vetoed by the governor.”
Regardless, he did not bankroll the mailer in question, he said.
Fralin said he first became aware of the mailer, and the two PACs in question, after Cannon reached out to him. He had seen the ad circulated on social media with Fralin’s name attached in posts.
“‘The only money I’ve ever given is to you guys,’” Fralin said he told Cannon.
Cannon confirmed to Cardinal News that No Gerrymandering Virginia received $10,000 from Fralin.
No Gerrymandering Virginia is not affiliated with either Democracy and Justice PAC or Justice for Democracy PAC, Cannon said in an interview with Cardinal News on Monday. The three PACs shared the same treasurer, however, according to their statements of organization.
Woodfin is no longer the treasurer for No Gerrymandering Virginia PAC as of Saturday, Cannon said, around the same time images of the mailer hit social media, setting off the controversy.
“Once we learned our former treasurer had erroneously reported that one of our donors contributed to an unrelated organization and used his business address from our filings, he was promptly terminated,” Mike Wade, the political director of No Gerrymandering Virginia said in a statement. “Our generous donor William Fralin did not and would not fund — nor would we ever support or associate with — a racially insensitive, misleading mailer targeting minority voters. Once we became aware of the issue, we immediately ended our relationship with the treasurer involved and hired a new compliance professional. That mailer is not our message or our mission, and we condemn the use of racist imagery and Jim Crow comparisons to scare or mislead voters regardless of who is behind it. Our work is to bring Democrats, Republicans, and Independents together to stop gerrymandering and ensure voters — not politicians — have the final say over Virginia’s congressional maps.”
Cannon led OneVirginia2021, an organization founded in 2014 with the goal of reforming Virginia’s redistricting laws and ending partisan gerrymandering. He formed No Gerrymandering Virginia, a bipartisan group, to oppose the mid-decade redistricting effort.
“This whole [redistricting] campaign has been misleading. The Democrats are putting on misleading ballot language, this shady PAC has emerged and put out misleading mailers. Virginia voters are being lied to, left and right,” Cannon said.
No Gerrymandering Virginia did not appear through a search on the state’s campaign reporting website. Its committee depository was designated, and its treasurer was appointed on Feb. 11, 2026, according to its statement of organization, which was provided by Woodfin.
“Maybe there was some error in reporting of this, in the state’s system, which is I guess antiquated a bit,” Cannon said.
Woodfin, who was listed as treasurer for all three PACs on their statements of organization, said committees have often used his office address, for the Campaign Compliance Center, on their filings.
“Mr. Fralin is correct,” Woodfin said in an email. “He donated to No Gerrymandering Virginia and there was a screw up in the filing software that created a Large Contribution Report from him to Justice for Democracy. That was reconciled this morning with State Board of Elections. To my knowledge, Mr. Fralin has no connection to either the Justice for Democracy PAC or Democracy and Justice PAC.”
The Virginia Department of Elections confirmed that Fralin’s donation was accidentally entered into the wrong committee.
Neither the Department of Elections nor Woodfin responded when asked for a copy of the Democracy and Justice PAC’s campaign finance report.
Black lawmakers and organizations respond
It remains unclear, in the absence of campaign finance reports for Democracy and Justice PAC, who funded the statewide mailer in question. Regardless, the mailer prompted statements of condemnation from Black lawmakers on Monday.
“My parents and grandparents lived through the reality of Jim Crow in Virginia. They experienced firsthand what it meant when the law and the political system were used to silence Black voices. That history is not a political prop, and it should never be exploited in a misleading attempt to confuse voters,” Jones said in a statement on Monday. “Virginians deserve honest information about the choices before them. Invoking the pain and sacrifice of the civil rights movement while spreading misleading claims about this referendum disrespects the very people who fought to secure the right to vote and have their voices heard.”
The NAACP Virginia State Conference denounced the mailer as “manipulative” and said it “falsely” compares the redistricting referendum to Jim Crow. “We cannot stand idly by and allow these reprehensible racist tactics go unchallenged,” the organization said.
“While the NAACP is nonpartisan, we are deeply engaged in political advocacy to safeguard our communities,” said the Rev. Cozy Bailey, president of the NAACP Virginia State Conference. “This referendum is crucial for ensuring fair representation for all communities and countering the manipulative tactics that threaten our civil rights.”
House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott on Monday condemned the use of Jim Crow-era imagery on the advertisement.
“The civil rights movement is not a prop. The blood, sacrifice, and courage of those who marched, who were beaten, who died for the right to vote – that legacy belongs to all of us, and it will not be hijacked by shadowy GOP political operatives to deceive the very communities it was meant to protect,” the Speaker said. “KKK hoods and Jim Crow images won’t intimidate us – because we know exactly what’s really going on. They want to silence the voices of Virginians so Donald Trump can consolidate power. We are leveling the playing field and we are fighting back.”
For more on redistricting, see our Voter Guide.