Judge voids VB City Council's vote that implemented 10-1 voting system
Instead, state Circuit Court Judge Randall Smith, retired out of Chesapeake, stayed his ruling Monday until after a referendum on the voting system is held in November. Voters in the city will have the choice to either endorse continuing to use the 10-1 system that has been used in the 2022 and 2024 elections, or transition to a 7-3-1 system, spelled out in the City Charter.
Either way, Smith's ruling made clear the authority to change the election system lies in the hands of the Virginia General Assembly.
Former City Council member Linwood Branch, who led several plaintiffs in bringing the suit last year, was pleased with ruling.
'Every voting change we've ever had in our city, beginning with the merger in 1963, the citizens of Virginia Beach have determined by referendum their voting system,' Branch said. 'We broke with precedent this time, but I'm glad seven members of council are now going to get us back to having the citizens have that opportunity. It's their vote. It's no one else's.'
The voting system governing Virginia's largest city has been debated for years.
In Branch's suit, the plaintiffs alleged the city illegally eliminated three at-large seats expressly established under the City Charter when it passed its decennial redistricting measure in 2023.
Virginia Beach was split into 10 separate districts of approximately 46,000 people. Each voter is only allowed to vote for the mayor and representative of the district they reside in under the 10-1 system.
That's a far change from the city's longtime system. Traditionally, Virginia Beach races were conducted in what became known as a 'hybrid at-large' system. Seven of the members serving on the city council or school board had to live in certain parts of the city, but every voter could vote for not only every district member, but also three at-large members and the mayor — thereby, a 7-3-1 system.
While a law passed by the General Assembly in 2021 abolished the use of the hybrid-at large system, 7-3-1 remains codified in the charter.
Smith agreed with plaintiffs that only the General Assembly can change the charter.
'It's a pure legal case,' said Brandan Goodwin, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. 'And you saw today that the judge's ruling was properly correct, that there was no authority in those statutes to eliminate the at-large seats guaranteed to the citizens of Virginia Beach in the city charter. That's what our case is about and now, moving forward, the city has done the right thing and is pursuing this referendum to let the citizens have a voice.'
However, the Virginia Beach City Attorney's office argued the 10-1 was the 'only legally viable system under both federal and state law' when the decennial redistricting needed to be passed.
In 2021, United States District Judge Raymond Jackson ruled that Virginia Beach's former 7-3-1 system 'denies Hispanics, African Americans and Asians equal access to the electoral and political process.'
While a federal appeals court overturned Jackson's ruling, the Virginia Beach City Attorney deemed it too late to stop the use of the court-imposed 10-1 system for the 2022 City Council and School Board elections.
Jackson dismissed the federal case after the city committed to efforts to have the General Assembly amend the City Charter for the 10-1 system.
Proponents of the 10-1 system point to Virginia Beach City Council becoming the most 'diverse city council' in the history of the city following the 2022 election. They also point to 2023 data from University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center that found the 10-1 district voting system was supported by 81% of city residents, with a 95% confidence level.
However, those in the business, tourism and agriculture communities have fought back. Branch, who owns the Days Inn at the Oceanfront, favors a new 7-3-1.
'I think every citizen has, has lost power,' Branch said. 'Would you join an HOA where you could only vote for two of 11 board members? That's what we have in Virginia Beach. You don't have the power to influence any decision and voting is accountability. … I look at our Virginia Aquarium. It's one of the jewels of our city. And yet it right now, it's unfunded. They have compromised aquarium tanks that are going to not work because nobody from other districts really cares. That's not how Virginia Beach is supposed to be, that you worry about one little district and not the whole city. More at-large representation will take care of citywide issues as well, which is important. We're not a little small town.'
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-Va.) vetoed a City Charter change last year because of Branch's lawsuit. Late last year, a majority of City Council members didn't support requesting a charter change, as the case was still ongoing.
Smith made clear his ruling does not change the lawful elections under 10-1 of 2022 and 2024.
'He's not doing anything about that ruling until the public has a chance to speak in the referendum,' said Chris Boynton, a deputy city attorney for Virginia Beach. 'And at that point, he believes the case will likely resolve itself, either by 10-1 happening by virtue of the public support and perhaps General Assembly action, or 7-3-1 after the referendum. Then we'd have to deal with the federal and the state Voting Rights Act implications of that.'
Branch said he would honor 'the will of the people' either way.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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PPR has a presence on Bluesky, TikTok, Threads and Twitch but has found its audience on Elon Musk's X, where its fan base goes well beyond the tinfoil-hat crowd. Followers include members of the military and the open-source intelligence community, or OSINT; professors and podcasters; journalists and other information junkies. Edward Byers, a retired Navy SEAL who won a Medal of Honor in 2016, and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both follow the account. A man who called himself PPR's founder responded to a direct message from a Washington Post reporter on PPR's Bluesky account and also messaged from its X account. 'I think a large reason for the rapid growth is the OSINT community sharing my reports the past few weeks, which is super cool,' he said in a direct-message chat over Bluesky. 'There also seems to be a lot of Crypto traders very interested in my reports which I didn't really expect.' 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The theory that spawned PPR has been frequently traced back to the Cold War, when Soviet agents allegedly monitored takeout orders to the highest reaches of the U.S. government. Yet it isn't clear the KGB ever relied on such methods. Simon Miles, an associate professor of history at Duke University who has studied Cold War-era spycraft, won't say that he's skeptical of the lore, exactly. 'You can't prove a negative,' he noted. But Miles has seen records from the Stasi, the East German intelligence service that shared information with the Soviets and other Eastern Bloc nations, and nowhere is there a mention of monitoring takeout. 'That's one of these Cold War stories that never goes away,' he said. 'I've never seen documentation to that effect.' Not that Russian spies weren't eyeing the streets around Washington for clues. Documents that Miles studied outlined some of the methods the KGB did use, including whether the government was moving founding documents from the National Archives into secure bunkers and whether many cars were parked past normal working hours at the White House. 'The idea was basically to create a list of indicators which, if enough of them started blinking red, so to speak, you would interpret that to mean that something was actually happening,' Miles said. Pizza, he said, wasn't on the list. Regardless, the 'pizza index' has fascinated people for decades, often fueled by media reports. In 1991, Frank Meeks, then the owner of 43 Domino's outlets in the D.C. area, told the AP that in the days leading up to Operation Desert Storm he had delivered dozens of pizzas to the Pentagon. Fifty-five pies, Meeks bragged, were sent to the White House in the hours before the U.S.-led coalition started an air campaign against Iraq over its invasion of Kuwait. In December 1998, Meeks was quoted by a Washington Post reporter during impeachment hearings against President Bill Clinton and preparations for Operation Desert Fox against Iraq. The White House and Congress broke previous three-day records for pizza deliveries, Meeks told The Post. 'The Pentagon Pizza Index has been a surprisingly reliable predictor of seismic global events — from coups to wars — since the 1980s,' Alex Selby-Boothroyd, head of data journalism for the Economist, wrote in a recent LinkedIn post. 'On the night of August 1st 1990 for example, the CIA ordered 21 pizzas in a single night just before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (a new record). Who says pie charts aren't useful?' But Pentagon ex-workers say times are different now than in the 1980s and '90s. Since the launch of Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash and other delivery services, a new universe of food options has opened up for workers at the Pentagon, White House or CIA. Why would anyone limit themselves to chain pizza? Besides, as multiple people pointed out, the Pentagon already has plenty of food options inside, including Lebanese Taverna, McDonald's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Panda Express, Panera Bread, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Subway, Taco Bell, Hissho Sushi and SmokeDatt Barbecue. There's even a pizzeria — Mosaic Pizza Company — but like many of the eateries there, it closes in the afternoon, catering to a rank-and-file staff that's often out the door by 5 p.m. The late-night options are pretty much limited to vending-machine sushi and the Market Basket Basement Cafe. Besides, leaders may not even want to break for food, said a U.S. Army reservist who regularly works in the Pentagon. 'It's just how we're wired,' said the reservist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorized to talk to the media. 'We're just trying to work so we can get it done.' None of the Pentagon workers contacted for this story had ever ordered a pizza at work — cell service is notoriously bad inside the building, one said — nor had they ever seen pizza boxes on a conference room table or in the trash. Which raises the question: Can pizza even be delivered to one of the most secure structures in the country? The Pentagon declined to comment for this story. But the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, its law enforcement agency, said all visitors must pass a background check and have authorized credentials; they and their belongings are also physically screened. All deliveries must be screened and inspected at the Pentagon Remote Delivery Facility just north of the complex. And anything perishable is 'confiscated and discarded,' spokesman Chris Layman noted in an email. But, Layman said, employees may bring in food that they've gotten directly from a restaurant. This appears to include food a staffer might pick up from a delivery driver at, say, the Pentagon Metro. These meals must also be screened and inspected. 'I can see having pizza delivered to a spot outside, but I don't recall we ever did it,' said Philip Greene, a retired U.S. Marine Corps attorney who had an office inside the Pentagon for 12 years. 'It's very anecdotal, but it makes sense. We're going to be burning the midnight oil. Let's get some pizza or Chinese food or whatever.'
