RICHMAND, Virginia (WRIC) – A federal lawsuit to force Virginia to hold another round of elections to the House of Representatives in November this year will have to endure a legal challenge from the state in March before it can be handed over to a panel of three judges.
A lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Virginia in June by attorney Paul Goldman argues that last fall’s election results were invalid because they were held in constituencies that have not been updated with new census data to reflect population changes over the past decade. .
Goldman, the former chairman of the Democratic Party in Virginia, is demanding that the court set one-year deadlines for all 100 state delegates and force Virginia to hold another round of elections in the re-elected constituencies. If the court is on Goldman’s side, the struggle for control of the House of Delegates will take place for three years in a row.
On Wednesday, the NAACP of Virginia backed the effort and called for new elections with approved redirection cards.
“It’s not about politics, it’s about upholding the fundamental rights inherent in our democratic form of government,” said Robert Barnett, president of the Virginia Conference of the Virginia NAACP.
But the trial has been deadlocked since Attorney General Mark Herring asked the court to reject Goldman’s efforts on procedural grounds. Herring’s office argued that senior state officials named in the lawsuit, including the governor, were not immune to such lawsuits.
U.S. District Judge David J. Novak ruled that the case could be moved against individual members of the state election commission and the Virginia Election Commissioner, but the Attorney General’s Office appealed the decision to the 4th U.S. District Court of Appeal in Richmond.
On March 8, the 4th U.S. District Court of Appeal in Richmond will hear oral arguments in this case.
Virginia’s Supreme Court approved maps of new congressional and state legislatures in December after a bipartisan commission failed to get out through guerrilla quarrels to come to an agreement on new political maps. The counties will remain in place for the next decade.
Goldman claims the old cards used for the Nov. 2 election are being violated the “one person, one vote” principle established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Goldman did not respond when 8News tried to contact him by phone on Wednesday.
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