The Supreme Court of Virginia denied a request by Democrats to pause a Tazewell County judge’s ruling to block the state from certifying the election results of last week’s redistricting referendum.

The judge ruled the State Department of Elections could not certify the referendum results until the state’s highest court ruled on the matter.

Democrats requested an emergency stay, which would have allowed the certification of the results while the legal challenge continued.

WRIC explained further:

However, the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled on Tuesday, April 28, that the Department of Elections cannot do that. Our 8News legal analyst confirmed that this is just a ruling on the request for a stay and not on the merits of the appeal.

On Wednesday, April 22, Tazewell County judge Jack Hurley declared that Virginia cannot certify the results of last Tuesday’s special election due to concerns about whether or not the effort is considered illegal.

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He ruled that Democrats’ attempt to redraw the state’s congressional map mid-decade were illegal on multiple counts. He ordered that Virginia cannot certify the results of the referendum held on April 21 and that legislators cannot take any steps to implement the new map.

Hurley previously blocked this proposal twice before the April 21 vote.

Court documents show Virginia Democrats advanced the proposal during the 2024 Special Session of the General Assembly. However, Democrats reportedly violated strict rules. As a result, any actions taken to advance the plan would be deemed illegal.

“The Virginia Supreme Court (#SCOVA) has DENIED the emergency request to stay the injunction of certification of last week’s Gerrymandering referendum! In the ‘tea leaves’ category, this is as positive a ‘tea leaf’ as one might imagine!” former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli commented.

“If #SCOVA thought they would let the referendum stand, then logically they would have lifted the injunction on counting & certifying the votes. Caveat: this is still just tea leaves, but it’s a good sign,” he added.

Fox News has more:

In a post-mortem analysis of Monday’s arguments, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said that only a few justices asked questions of the litigants and their questions for the “Yes” camp were particularly pointed.

Attorneys Richard Hawkins and Matthew Seligman, and Solicitor General Tillman Breckenridge represented Democrats seeking to uphold Tuesday’s election result, while attorney Thomas McCarthy argued for Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, and other officials challenging it.

Justice Wesley Russell’s first question to Seligman and Hawkins was whether the vote Tuesday in which the “Yes” camp won even mattered in a legal setting.

“He got counsel for the defendants to concede ‘no the vote outcome does not matter’ — they didn’t talk about the margin [or the] 3:1 spending,” Cuccinelli said later Monday.

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Cuccinelli said Democrats, led by Attorney General Jay Jones, have used that victory since as their reason for the redistricting’s legitimacy.

“The current attorney general of Virginia… has really in his public statements; the only defense I’ve heard him offer is the ‘will of the people’… and his own lawyer in court today says that was irrelevant,” Cuccinelli said. “[Hawkins] completely undercut the public stance of the current attorney general.”

Cuccinelli added that the defendants were also “shockingly blasé” when they suggested early voters vote at their own risk of an “October Surprise” like redistricting, when challenged on the merits of the case given the 45-day early voting window established the last time Democrats had full control in Richmond.

 

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