Virginia Beach Referendum about Local Election System on Ballot

Virginia Beach voters are headed toward a November 4 referendum on how the city elects its council and school board, a question that has already moved through federal court, the General Assembly, a governor’s veto, and a state circuit court.

The ballot question asks whether the city charter’s modified 7-3-1 system should be replaced with a 10-1 system. Under the 10-1 plan associated with U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson, the school board and city council would be elected from 10 districts plus one at-large seat. On council, that at-large seat is the mayor. The modified 7-3-1 arrangement uses seven districts, three at-large council seats, and a separately elected mayor. On the school board, the same framework is described as seven districts and four at-large seats.

The fight is about more than arithmetic. Virginia Code section 24.2-304.1 lets local governing bodies provide by ordinance for ward, district, or at-large election of their members, subject to other laws on how boundaries are drawn. Virginia Beach’s charter, approved by the General Assembly in 1962, divided the city into seven districts of roughly equal population. District candidates had to live in the district, but the whole city voted for them. The charter also had the city at large elect three additional council members and the mayor. That is the system supporters shorthand as 7-3-1.

A 2018 lawsuit brought by Latasha Holloway and Georgia Allen argued that at-large voting denied Black, Hispanic or Latino, and Asian American voters an equal chance to elect representatives of their choice. The city answered that the plaintiffs could not simply combine minority groups into one Voting Rights Act claim, and that they had not shown those voters would coalesce behind the same candidates. Before the trial ended, the General Assembly passed a law that eliminated the challenged at-large district seats. Judge Jackson did not treat the case as moot. On August 9, 2021, he found the system violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered a special master, California professor Bernard Grofman, to propose a remedy. The court then directed Virginia Beach to use a 10-1 system, even though that design was not the one written into the city charter.

The Fourth Circuit vacated that ruling on July 27, 2022, holding the dispute moot because of the intervening state legislation. In 2023 the city council moved to keep 10-1 in place anyway. A charter amendment still needed General Assembly approval, and that approval did not come. The city used the system in a subsequent election despite the unresolved charter problem.

Former council member Linwood Branch and other plaintiffs sued in 2024, arguing the city had to follow its charter rather than 10-1. On June 30, 2025, a circuit judge held the 10-1 system invalid because the General Assembly had not approved a charter change. A governor had previously vetoed a related bill, citing the litigation. The judge stayed the ruling pending the November referendum, leaving voters to decide the structure while the legal cloud remains.

Branch told Restoration News that residents, “the true owners of these votes,” would finally speak in November after the question had already been handled by federal and state courts, the council, the General Assembly, and the governor.

Judge Jackson has not left the field. On July 8 he allowed Holloway and Allen to file new pleadings in the original 2018 case. He said the city had not lived up to an agreement to codify 10-1, even though the city attorney said the city had sought a charter amendment in 2024 and the change was rejected.

The practical difference for a voter is how many seats that voter can influence. Under 10-1 lets a resident vote for only two of the 11 members on council and on the school board: one district representative and one at-large official. The 7-3-1 design lets a resident vote for a district member plus the at-large seats, five choices rather than two. Critics of 10-1 say it shrinks each voter’s reach and was built to engineer the racial composition of the two boards. Supporters of the lawsuit say the old at-large district seats diluted minority voting strength.

Grofman’s role is part of the political argument. He was appointed special master by Judge Jackson and has been a frequent Democratic expert in redistricting cases elsewhere. In 2021 he called Republicans and Donald Trump liars, and that he is now helping reshape elections in a city where the charter, not a California court, was supposed to set the rules.

Whatever voters mark on November 4, the charter problem does not disappear by slogan. A system imposed after a vacated federal order, used after the legislature declined a charter amendment, and then declared invalid by a state judge is a shaky foundation for the next council and school board. The referendum is the city’s chance to say whether it wants seven districts plus at-large seats, or ten districts plus a single at-large seat, under a charter the General Assembly is actually willing to enact.

Email the Virginia Beach Board/Council:
Robert Dyer, mayorsoffice@vbgov.com,
Michael Berlucchi, mberlucc@vbgov.com,
Stacy Cummings, stcummings@vbgov.com,
Barbara Henley, bhenley@vbgov.com,
David Hutcheson, dhutcheson@vbgov.com,
Cal Jackson-Green, cjacksongreen@vbgov.com,
Robert Remick, wremick@vbgov.com,
Amelia Ross-Hammond, arosshammond@vbgov.com,
Jennifer Rouse, jvrouse@vbgov.com,
Joashua Schulman, jschulman@vbgov.com,
Rosemary Wilson, rcwilson@vbgov.com,