Virginia voters on Tuesday approved three amendments to the state constitution that enshrine the right to reproductive health, including abortion, remove the ban on same-sex marriage and restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated felons.
With nearly all localities reporting, supporters outpaced opponents by the following margins, according to state election figures:
- Reproductive health: 62%-38%
- Same-sex marriage: 57%-43%
- Voting rights: 55%-45%
The General Assembly in January gave final approval for the amendments to appear on Tuesday’s ballot. The approval was largely along party lines, with the Democratic majority spearheading the push.
It was the second time the General Assembly approved the amendments. The first vote was in 2025. In Virginia, the General Assembly must approve an amendment twice with an intervening election between the two votes. Then it goes to voters in a referendum.
On Question #1, Virginia’s constitution did not explicitly provide a right to access reproductive healthcare, including abortion. The amendment will also allow the state government to regulate abortion care in the third trimester of pregnancy and require any such law to allow for abortion care when needed to protect the life and health of the mother or because the fetus is not viable.
Del. Marcia “Cia” Price, D-Newport News, said in a statement that “Virginians have made their voices heard. They said loud and clear that reproductive freedom is a fundamental right that belongs in our state constitution.”
She added: “Patients, families and the providers who care for them can now be included in protections in our state constitution.”
Also weighing in was Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia. In a statement, she called the results “an incredible win for reproductive freedom in Virginia.”
Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, said Virginians would one day regret Tuesday’s vote. Meanwhile, court action is pending.
“We won’t sugarcoat what happened tonight,” she said. “Writing elective abortion through all nine months into our constitution is a wound to the commonwealth. Virginians who will bear it most are the ones who didn’t get to vote: the unborn children.”
The organization will go to court on Nov. 13 with its legal arm, the Founding Freedoms Law Center, to seek a preliminary injunction preventing the certification of the results, challenging it on procedural grounds and the language, which she said was deceptive.
The hearing is scheduled for Tazewell County Circuit Court.
She acknowledged the electoral landscape favored Democrats in this election cycle.
“The reality is, a blue wave swept up these amendments,” she said. “When the blue wave recedes, voters will see what’s been left behind in our constitution.”
Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax County, who sponsored the amendment, told Cardinal News in August that her motivation to champion this issue stemmed from her experience with a rare form of preeclampsia when pregnant with her second child.
The 2022 Dobbs decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade risked access to reproductive healthcare, she said.
The constitutional amendment on same-sex marriage was a different debate.
The Virginia constitution bans same-sex marriage, but that was overridden in 2015 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges. However, if the federal decision were to be overturned in the future, then Virginia’s ban could go back into effect. Advocates wanted to protect marriage equality.
The third question would change the current constitutional provision that says convicted felons lose the right to vote for the rest of their lives unless the governor takes administrative action to restore that right, on an individual basis. Also, a person found to be incapacitated, regardless of the kind of incapacity, loses the right to vote, and only a court can restore it.
The amendment says a convicted felon automatically regains the right to vote after release from prison, without needing to appeal to the governor. It also requires a court to find that an incapacitated person does not understand the act of voting in order for their right to vote to be taken away.
Among those closely watching returns on Question #3 was Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton. For 15 years, she sponsored the amendment in the Senate, finally seeing it come to fruition.
Reached at an election night gathering in Newport News, Locke said all three constitutional amendments were about expanding democracy.
“It is giving people autonomy over what they do,” she said, “whether it is voting, whether it is whom they marry or as it relates to reproductive freedom.”
