Virginia Democrats spent millions of taxpayers’ dollars, and magnitudes more of their own, to fund a special election on gerrymandering that may soon be dying in court.
HB 1384, the proposed amendment that would modify the constitution to allow the Democratic-led General Assembly to redraw electoral districts that would lose Republicans all but one seat in the federal House of Representatives, allocated $5 million of taxpayers’ money for the special election to certify the amendment, and created space for even more spending to take place.
Specifically, the bill says that $5 million is reserved for the Department of Elections to cover the cost of the election, which includes voter education, grants for absentee voting, and “other costs associated with the April 21, 2026, special election.” (RELATED: The Left’s Obsession With Early Voting May Lose Them Seats In Virginia)
The proposed amendment also says that additional expenses “incurred in conducting this election shall be defrayed,” or have the tab picked up, “as in the case of election of members of the General Assembly.”
This means that the $5 million allocation serves more as an estimate, as additional funding may be needed.
BURKE, VIRGINIA – APRIL 17: Campaign signs are seen at a polling place on April 17, 2026 in Burke, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
According to the Farmville Herald, Virginia counties may also need to chip in for the elections themselves, with the average cost of elections in Lunenburg County ranging from $18,000 to $25,000, while other counties, like Buckingham, may pay a minimum of $30,000.
Buckingham County Electoral Board Chairwoman Linda Easter Davis told the Herald that the Virginia Department of Elections has also reported an estimated cost of $14.2 million for mailing notifications to voters if the redistricting passes.
This could make the state’s cost nearly $20 million, without accounting for the accumulating costs of hosting the votes across Virginia’s 95 counties or the potential for otherwise “defrayed” state funding.
The bill also allocated an additional $100,000 to the Division of Legislative Services and another $100,000 to the Division of Legislative Automated Services.
This money is needed as the referendum fights for its life in court.
Hearings were held at the Virginia Supreme Court on Monday, in which the legality of the election itself, not the result, was debated.
However, on Tuesday, the state’s Supreme Court denied a request from state Attorney General Jay Jones to pause a lower court order blocking the redistricting referendum, leaving it in a state of limbo. (RELATED: Virginia Circuit Court Rules Redistricting Vote Unconstitutional)
Immediately following the hearing, former Virginia Attorney General and head of the Election Transparency Initiative Ken Cuccinelli said that although it is impossible to know what the court will decide, especially as the November midterms draw closer, one “tea leaf,” or clue, would be how the court responds to Jones’ request to stay the lower court’s injunction.
ETI Press Conference Live https://t.co/nzyYMF8qgM
— Election Transparency Initiative (@ETI_now) April 27, 2026
Cuccinelli said the court may have waited until after the hearing to respond to Jones’ stay request, but predicted that a denial of the pause would suggest the court is going to strike the referendum down while still taking time to put together an opinion.
Cuccinelli said he would be surprised if an opinion is not issued by the end of May.
With the referendum appearing to be dying, the tax dollars spent on the election do not seem to be the only waste of funds.
Axios reported that, not including the last week of the campaign, both the pro- and anti-redistricting groups spent more than $83 million campaigning for the referendum, with $62 million coming from the Democrat-aligned side in support of the change.
The former attorney general said that the Democrats, having just garnered a 51% of the vote, had only “squeaked by despite a three-to-one spending advantage.”
“I think this is going to end up having been a big waste of money, including political money,” Cuccinelli said if the referendum gets thrown out, adding that it may serve as a “strategic advantage for the Republicans, because the Democrats will have burned that money, and at best they’d have just made Virginia voters mad.”
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