The US state of Virginia’s top court has thrown out a new electoral map that was crafted to flip four Republican-held US congressional seats to Democrats, handing President Donald Trump’s party a victory ahead of the November midterm elections.
Ruling in favour of a Republican challenge, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected a Democratic-backed ballot measure approved by voters in April that reconfigured the state’s US House of Representatives districts for partisan advantage.
The ruling could bolster Republican hopes of keeping their majority in the US House in the midterms. Democrats pursued the Virginia measure as part of a nationwide battle involving the redrawing of the boundaries of US districts that the Republican president initiated last year.
In its ruling, the Virginia court agreed with Republican claims that the state’s Democratic-majority legislature did not follow proper procedure in approving the referendum before it was put to the voters.
A day after the referendum, a county judge blocked the state from certifying the results, calling the ballot language “flagrantly misleading.”
The Virginia court’s ruling adds to Republican momentum in the redistricting fight. It came on the heels of the US Supreme Court ruling that eviscerated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for Republican-led Southern states to dismantle Democratic-held majority-Black and majority-Latino districts.
Black and Latino voters tend to support Democratic candidates.
Already, Republican-controlled states such as Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee have taken steps toward drawing new maps in time for the November elections, even postponing party primary elections to give lawmakers time.
Trump last year pushed Texas Republicans to rip up their electoral map and draw new district lines targeting five Democratic US House incumbents. After Texas did so, California Democrats reconfigured their state’s districts, targeting five Republican incumbents. Other states have followed suit.
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Virginia voters approved the Democratic-backed map in an April 21 special election by a 51.7% to 48.3% margin, according to an Associated Press tally. The referendum was the final step in a complicated legislative manoeuvre to sidestep a constitutional amendment, passed by voters in 2020, that had put redistricting in the hands of a bipartisan commission.
