In November 2020, voters in Virginia went to the polls to vote for US president, Congress, and numerous local officials. Also on the ballot was a state constitutional amendment (Amendment One) that would take redistricting of state legislative and US House districts out of the hands of the state legislature (known in Virginia as the General Assembly) and create a commission made up of eight legislators and eight citizens selected by a panel of retired circuit court judges. The commission would then create the district lines that, if approved by a supermajority of commission members, would be voted on by the full General Assembly. Amendment One passed, with two-thirds of Virginians voting in favor.

Amendment One was endorsed by major newspapers in Virginia, while the state’s Democratic Party (which won full control of state government in 2019 for the first time in twenty-six years) urged voters to defeat Amendment One...

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