EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Beach Voting Lawsuit Tainted by Dark Money, Undisclosed Partisan Ties
by Victoria Manning
The Special Master for redrawing the city’s political maps did not disclose his assistant’s partisan political ties in a suit influenced by a left-wing dark money group.
Previously undisclosed ties to partisan dark money groups may upend efforts to redraw voting districts in a major Virginia city, according to new discoveries by Restoration News.
Since 2018, Virginia Beach has been embroiled in a controversial battle over redrawing its voting districts. The effort was triggered by a lawsuit brought by two activist citizens who claimed the city’s current voting districts are racist, and demanded they be replaced by majority-minority districts dominated by non-white voters.
On Aug. 9, 2021, Virginia Beach Judge Raymond Jackson appointed Dr. Bernard Grofman as the “special master” to redistrict all 10 Virginia Beach city council and school board seats. Grofman is required by law to be independent and non-partisan—yet he’s been accused of attacking President Trump and Republicans as liars and conspiracy theorists. The lawsuit prompting the redistricting process was also backed by a far-left dark money group, Campaign Legal Center, which has received funding from notorious crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
Now Restoration News has learned that Grofman’s research assistant, Zachary Griggy, failed to publicly disclose his ties to partisan Democrat groups, raising further concerns about Grofman’s impartiality.
Griggy is co-political director for the Marin County Young Democrats in California’s Bay Area, a partisan group he’s been involved with for years according to social media photos. According to Griggy’s LinkedIn account, he was field director for a 2020 Democrat City Council candidate in California and worked as an assistant for a California Democrat Assemblyman in 2024. Griggy did not disclose his involvement with any of these partisan groups on his resumé presented to the Virginia Beach court.
The lawsuit has been ongoing since 2018, when plaintiffs Latasha Holloway and Georgia Allen—both Virginia Beach residents—sued the city of Virginia Beach claiming its longstanding city council election system is racist. Under the city’s governing charter, residents vote for 4 at-large seats in addition to a district seat. Holloway and Allen oppose at-large voting, arguing it dilutes minority voting power.
Since 2018, the plaintiffs have filed numerous amended complaints relying on Grofman’s work as the special master to justify their push for an alternative voting system that includes race-based majority-minority voting districts.
Factual Inaccuracies in Plaintiffs Affidavit
The recent Aug. 7, 2025, court filing, cites a number of inaccuracies to push its case.
The lawsuit claims the public supports the 10-1 system, which removes at-large districts. The affidavit cites a “statistically validated” survey finding the public “widely supported the 10-1 system.” Yet only 2,112 residents completed the survey out of over 450,000. In fact, over 60 percent of respondents favored a referendum to let voters decide the voting system. Elsewhere, the lawsuit claims 81 percent of the city supports the 10-1 system, yet only a very small sampling of less than one percent of the total population was surveyed.
The lawsuit claims that in Jan. 2024, parties “supported by special interests” filed a state lawsuit (Linwood Branch, et.al). Yet there is no justification for using the “special interest” label since this suit was filed by a black resident concerned about her voting rights as well as multiple former city council candidates.
The lawsuit claims elections in Virginia Beach show a clear pattern of racially polarized voting. However, evidence suggests otherwise. In 2018, a black male won first place in an at-large city council race against 5 other white opponents. In 2020, a black male won, by a large margin, against two white candidates in a district that was predominantly white. In 2024, a black female defeated a white male by a wide margin in an at-large school board race.
According to the lawsuit, the city council failed to request a charter change, which rendered the state General Assembly unable to propose legislation that would enable the Virginia Beach charter to adopt the 10-1 system. That allegation is completely false. Virginia Beach Del. Kelly Fowler carried legislation (HB 1687) in 2025 that called for a charter change to a 10-1 system. The legislation was defeated in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
The complaint makes many political allegations against certain city council members who voted against a change to city charter. However, the views of elected politicians on city council have nothing to do with whether the voting system in Virginia Beach violates the Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court May Decide this Fall
As recently reported by Restoration News, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide this fall whether racially gerrymandered maps violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The question specifically before the high court in Louisiana v. Callais is whether the creation of a majority-minority district violates the Constitution.
The 10-1 system recently used in Virginia Beach at the order of unelected Judge Raymond Jackson and in conflict with the city’s governing charter, was created with race-based majority-minority districts. Grofman and his Democrat assistant Griggy created the maps specifically based on the racial makeup of districts to advantage certain racial groups over others.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled twice—in Shaw v. Reno (1993) and Miller v. Johnson (1995)—that voting districts created based on race are unconstitutional. Specifically, race cannot be used as the predominant factor in the creation of voting districts, as was done in Virginia Beach.
The high court also ruled in the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions case that race cannot be used as a factor in college admissions. While this case was related to education, it could have broader implications and could provide insight into how the court could rule on race-based decision making in voting districts.
The Holloway lawsuit seeks to have race-based majority-minority districts as the method of choosing political candidates in Virginia Beach and that is how the special master drew the 10-1 voting lines.
While Virginia Beach voters will let their voice be heard through a referendum in November, the Supreme Court will decide this fall whether racial gerrymandering is constitutional.
Republished with permission from Restoration News.
Victoria Manning is a Senior Investigative Researcher for Restoration News specializing in education freedom, immigration, and military issues. She is the author of Behind the Wall of Government Schools. Victoria served 8 years as an elected school board member and has a master’s degree in law. She also brings the perspective of a military spouse and mother to her reporting.
