states

Virginia has an ISLT score of 59, which means it has a high risk of a Republican-led state legislature passing legislation to swing the state’s 2024 electoral votes toward the Republican presidential nominee. 

Virginia’s margin of victory in the last presidential contest was 10.1%, making it the 16th closest contest. The margin of victory in the state matters because states with the closest margins of victories are more likely to flip as a result of voter suppression bills and other tactics that could be unleashed by a rogue, unaccountable state legislature. 

Democrats control the Virginia Senate and Republicans control the Virginia House. The partisan control of the state legislature is included because Republican operatives supported and carried out an insurrectionist coup to undermine democracy in the last election, and have demonstrated a desire to overturn democratic election outcomes if necessary in order to gain power. Republicans control 52.0% of the Virginia House and 45.0% of the Virginia Senate, which indicates that Republicans do not have a two-chamber majority to enact future legislation that could interfere with the 2024 election. We also compared the partisan control of the state legislature to the state’s 2020 presidential results, and found that Republicans control 8.0% more state house seats and 1.0% more state senate seats than expected. This skew toward the GOP indicates that the state legislature, which could be empowered to enact radical federal election law changes under ISLT, may well be insulated from being held accountable by voters.

Virginia’s legislature introduced at least 46 bills during 2021 and 2022 that would suppress votes or interfere with election administration.

Additional Considerations

State Supreme Court

Virginia appoints Supreme Court judges through the state legislature.⁴ Under a maximalist version of ISLT, the state Supreme Court would be unable to review or strike down any federal election-related changes the state legislature enacted. State legislatures could enact radical changes without state courts or the state constitution checking their authoritarian power. For this reason, the Conference of Chief Justices — which represents chief justices of both parties in all 50 states, took the rare step of filing an amicus brief opposing ISLT.

Redistricting ISLT could drastically reshape the redistricting process for U.S. House seats, enabling radical state legislatures to gerrymander with impunity. Currently, Virginia uses an independent redistricting commission to apportion U.S. House Districts in the first instance.⁵ If the Supreme Court adopts ISLT, the state legislature could choose to take full control of the redistricting process for U.S. House elections and strip the independent redistricting commission of its authority.

¹ 2020 presidential election data sourced from “2020 Presidential Election Results” Interactive Map, New York Times.
² State senate and house data sourced from “Virginia General Assembly,” Ballotpedia.
³ State legislation data sourced from “Comprehensive Bill Tracker,” Voting Rights Lab (accessed Nov. 7, 2022).
⁴ “Supreme Court of Virginia,” Ballotpedia.
⁵ The Virginia legislature may approve or reject the maps submitted by the commission. “Virginia Summary,” All About Redistricting/ Loyola Law School.