RNC Opens New Front in Election Integrity Battle Over ‘Never Residents’ Voting in 6 States

After a victory in the battleground state of North Carolina, the Republican National Committee has pending litigation against six other states to stop U.S. citizens who never lived in those states from voting in their elections.

The RNC has sued battleground states Arizona and Nevada; blue states such as Colorado, New Jersey, and Virginia; and the red state of Nebraska over laws allowing non-residents to vote. These cases are narrowly focused on closing state loopholes that allow people who never lived in a state to vote by absentee ballot.

“If you’ve never lived in a state, you shouldn’t be voting in its elections,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told the Daily Signal in a statement.

“The RNC already put a stop to this unconstitutional loophole in North Carolina, and we’re taking Nebraska, Colorado, Nevada, and New Jersey to court to do the same,” he said. “We’ll keep fighting to ensure elections are only decided by legal residents.”

The Federal Voting Assistance Program lists 38 states that allow some form of voting by residents who never lived in a state. Typically, the states allow an American residing abroad with parents living in that state to vote by absentee ballot.

“In some states, U.S. citizens who were born abroad—and have never resided in the United States—are eligible to vote absentee. If your state is not listed, contact your election office to check whether you’re eligible,” the Federal Voting Assistance Program’s website says.

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The lawsuits are not related to longstanding rules that allow military personnel or diplomats to vote absentee. The RNC says it strongly supports the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA. To ensure standing, the RNC is teaming with either the state party, a candidate, or both in the litigation for each state court.

An RNC official told the Daily Signal that it is reviewing other states that could be violating their own constitutions on voter eligibility. The committee already has launched more than 160 active election integrity cases across 36 states.

In June, the Wake County Superior Court struck down a North Carolina law allowing people born overseas who never lived in the state to vote in the state’s elections, a court victory for the RNC against the state’s elections board.

In Nevada, the RNC joined the state’s Republican Party and Republican nominee for Nevada secretary of state Jim Marchant in challenging a provision of the state’s law that allows certain people who have never lived in Nevada—and in some cases have never lived in the United States—to vote in the state’s elections.

The existing policy allows people to vote based on either the past residency of a parent or legal guardian. Plaintiffs assert this violates the state’s constitution, which states that voters must have “actually, as opposed to constructively” resided in Nevada to be eligible to vote.

Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar called the lawsuit “an attack on the voting rights of eligible U.S. citizens living abroad.” He also said reversing Nevada’s existing law could affect military families.

“They risk everything to defend our freedoms, including the fundamental right to vote, and Nevada has a responsibility to protect their access to the ballot and the rights of the families who serve alongside them,” Aguilar, a Democrat, told the Daily Signal in a statement.

“Children born overseas should not be punished because their parents served, worked, or were stationed outside the United States,” Aguilar added. “Nevada will not turn its back on military families simply because their service took them away from home.”

The attorneys general’s offices in Colorado, Nebraska and New Jersey declined to comment for the story because it is pending litigation. The offices for the secretaries of state for these states did not respond to inquiries for this story. 

The offices of attorneys general or secretaries of state in Arizona and New Jersey did not respond. In Virginia, neither the state Board of Elections nor the office of the attorney general responded to inquiries.