For an opposing point of view, see “Why I voted yes” by Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi. For more on the April 21 special election, see our Voter Guide. Got a question about redistricting?Let us know here and we’ll see if we can answer it.
Virginia Democrats are asking voters to gerrymander our commonwealth in the name of saving democracy.
I share the fear driving that argument. I believe authoritarianism is a threat to our democracy. I believe the integrity of election administration and institutional guardrails face real stress. I do not stand outside those concerns — I share them.
But that shared concern is precisely why Virginia should vote NO on April 21st.
If the threat is democratic erosion nationally, the answer is not democratic erosion here in Virginia.
There are two reasons — one moral and one practical. And then there is what voters are not being told.
The moral case
Gerrymandering disenfranchises voters. It is the deliberate engineering of political outcomes through map design. It replaces real voter accountability with prearranged results.
That principle does not change based on which party benefits.
In 2020, Virginians amended the state constitution to prohibit gerrymandering because they believed politicians should not choose their voters. That reform overwhelmingly passed across all ideological lines, because voters understood that cheating to win corrodes democratic legitimacy.
Now in 2026, Virginia Democrats claim that gerrymandering is necessary because the president has called for Republicans to aggressively redraw maps and Democrats must respond in kind.
But a race to the bottom is not a defense strategy for democracy.
If Texas disenfranchises Democratic voters, the answer is not for Virginia to disenfranchise Republicans. Once each side justifies its conduct by pointing to the worst behavior elsewhere, reform becomes conditional and principles become temporary. Respected Czech dissident and later president Václav Havel warned that democratic societies erode not only through dramatic coups, but through small accommodations to expedience — moments when we tell ourselves that bending the rules is necessary this time. That logic does not stop at one exception.
That is how democratic norms decay.
The practical case
Supporters argue that the stakes of congressional control justify the change. That every additional seat is essential.
But numbers matter.
Virginia Democrats’ proposed gerrymander might produce two additional Democratic seats beyond what they could win under our current fair maps.
Since World War II, the party that does not hold the presidency has gained an average of 25 House seats in midterm elections. The last time Donald Trump was in the White House during a midterm cycle, Democrats gained 40 seats and flipped control of the House.
Those structural forces have not disappeared. If anything, they remain one of the most consistent patterns in American politics.
Against swings of that magnitude, an extra two engineered districts in Virginia are exceedingly unlikely to determine who controls Congress. If the historical pattern holds even loosely, Virginia would be trading away bipartisan reform credibility and long-term institutional trust for a marginal gain that will not determine whether Hakeem Jeffries becomes speaker.
Meanwhile, the real vulnerabilities in our democratic system lie elsewhere: election certification guardrails, protection of election workers, protection of voters from masked federal agents at the polls under the pretext of enforcing immigration laws, ballot access statutes, chain-of-custody rules, post-election audits and statutory clarity around vote counting.
Gerrymandering Virginia does not address any of those real vulnerabilities. If the concern is authoritarian interference, the response must be institutional strengthening — not partisan rigging of maps.
Political opportunism in a moment of crisis
There is another truth voters should consider.
I spent years working directly with Virginia legislators — Democrats and Republicans — trying to persuade them to support fair redistricting. I know who genuinely embraced the principle that politicians should not draw their own districts, and who treated it as a tactical calculation.
Many of the same lawmakers now urging renewed gerrymandering were skeptical of reform when it constrained their own power. Their support then for good-government reform was conditional. Their support for gerrymandering now is convenient.
That history matters. It is why I do not view this maneuver as a temporary, reluctant exception. I view it as a reversion to political instinct.
Texas was gerrymandered in 2020 — the very year Virginia voters passed our fair maps amendment. It will likely be gerrymandered again in 2030. None of that changes the principle. The fact that other states manipulate their maps does not relieve Virginia of the responsibility to do better for our voters.
A reform that collapses the first time it becomes inconvenient was never truly embraced, and is disrespectful of the will of the millions of Virginians who voted for it.
What you’re not being told
The advertising campaign in favor of this amendment will cost tens of millions of dollars in out of state money. It highlights Texas, Missouri and North Carolina — states where Republicans have aggressively gerrymandered.
That is not the full picture.
When you factor in California’s Democratic-leaning map and ongoing litigation over congressional districts across the country, many of the projected Republican advantages are already being offset elsewhere. Just this February, the Utah Supreme Court ordered congressional lines redrawn under that state’s fair-maps amendment — a change expected to produce an additional Democratic seat.
In other words, the national map landscape is far less advantageous to Republicans — and far more favorable to Democrats — than the advertising campaign suggests.
Voters are being shown a selective set of examples designed to heighten fear. They are not being shown the broader landscape.
Voters are also not being told something closer to home.
One of the most obvious beneficiaries of Virginia’s proposed gerrymander is Del. Dan Helmer, who has already lost two congressional primaries and is now positioned to run in a newly drawn district engineered to improve his chances. Rumors in Richmond have swirled around other politicians having districts drawn for them as political favors, too. That is not an abstract reform debate. It is the epitome of why politicians should not draw their own districts.
When maps are redrawn in ways that conveniently align with specific politicians’ ambitions, voters are right to be skeptical. That is exactly the dynamic Virginia voters rejected in 2020.
The group promoting this amendment calls itself “Virginians for Fair Elections.” But the defense of these maps is not that they are neutral or balanced. The defense is that they are strategically necessary.
That is not a fairness argument. It is a power argument. They’re trying to manipulate us.
Voters deserve honesty about that distinction.
Conclusion
Virginia earned national respect in 2020 by rejecting partisan map manipulation. If we reverse course now, we send a clear signal that reform lasts only until it becomes inconvenient. And in a purple state that just had a Republican governor and House of Delegates recently, the shoe can move to the other foot quickly.
If authoritarianism is the concern, then we must refuse to imitate it. You do not defend democracy by bending it. You do not fight fire with fire. You fight fire with water. Strengthen the rules. Protect the guardrails. Hold the line. Virginia can respond to national instability without abandoning the very reform voters demanded.
Brian Cannon is a democracy reform advocate who helped lead Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting reform effort from 2015 to 2021 and works on election reform initiatives nationally.
