CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones has instructed localities to move forward with early voting, bringing clarity to the murky status of the April 21 redistricting referendum that Republicans are challenging in court.

Jones issued the opinion Wednesday at the request of Senate Majority Leaders Scott Surovell (D-Mount Vernon) and Del. Cia Price (D-Newport News).

Charlottesville Registrar Taylor Yowell told Cville Right Now that had been the city’s plan even before James’s announcement.

“I’m sure other localities are going to handle that differently,” Yowell said. “But that is very much what our opinion and our stance is here in our office that until the state tells us not to move forward with voting, we have been told to move forward with it originally and so we are sticking with that until we are told to stop that from the Department of Elections.”

The Attorney General’s Office release summarizing the opinion said, “that electoral boards and general registrars are required under Virginia law to provide for in-person absentee voting beginning 45 days prior to Election Day. It also makes clear that these entities have no discretion to delay, or fail to initiate early voting on that timeline, absent a valid court order expressly enjoining such administration issued by a court of competent jurisdiction.”

The Opinion further states that any local resolution, regardless of a locality’s stated justification, that attempts to prevent election officials from implementing in-person absentee voting is inconsistent with state law and therefore legally invalid.

“This Opinion makes clear that any local resolution attempting to disenfranchise its own people by preventing election officials from implementing in-person absentee voting contradicts state law and is legally invalid,” Jones wrote.

The release said Election Day for the Virginia Constitutional Amendment Referendum on Redistricting is April 21, 2026. Virginians may cast ballots early in person across Virginia beginning Friday, March 6, 2026.

“Ever since we have been told there is a special election that will happen on April 21 with early voting on March 6, we have been making preparations for that,” Yowell said. “And once we started, we have not stopped. The only thing that will tell us at this point to hold out on early voting, to hold off on election day or anything of that sort is when the Department of Elections gives us that information, and they have not at this point.”

New Albemarle County Registrar Jonell McFadden did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Cville Right Now, but the Electoral Board met Monday in preparation for Friday early voting and those operations have continued, as well.

Tazewell County, which had been named specifically in an injunction by a Circuit Judge there ordering a stop to the election proceedings, ceased its preparations since that judge’s order.