Republicans Want to Block Some US Citizens From Voting in GOP-Led State

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed a lawsuit in Nebraska challenging election rules that protect overseas voting rights for certain American citizens, expanding the party’s legal campaign over voting access ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

The complaint argues that a state law allowing U.S. citizens who have never lived in the country to vote using their parents’ Nebraska residency violates the state constitution. The move comes as Republicans, backed by President Donald Trump, seek to tighten voting regulations nationwide before the midterms, which will determine control of the U.S. Congress.

While Nebraska is a reliably conservative state that has backed Republican presidential candidates in every election since 1968-with the occasional exception of the Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District-legal experts say the lawsuit may be less about shifting local outcomes and more about establishing a legal precedent for other states.

Outgoing Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen, a Republican, questioned the strategic focus of the lawsuit.

“Why this would now be the focus of attention of the RNC is a little baffling to me,” Evnen told the Nebraska Examiner on Monday.

Evnen noted that on the same day the lawsuit was filed, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., blocked the Trump administration’s overhauled use of the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which aimed to identify noncitizen voters. A federal judge ruled that overhaul unlawful in late June.

“People have to make up their own minds about what they want to focus on, but I don't understand why the RNC wouldn't be focusing on that problem, versus this problem, which may be unconstitutional, but is just almost or virtually never used,” Evnen added.

Newsweek reached out to the RNC and the Nebraska Secretary of State for comment via email Monday afternoon.

The Core of the Legal Challenge

The lawsuit, filed by the RNC alongside two Nebraska voters, targets a 2010 state statute enacted to comply with federal overseas voting guidelines. Under current state law, individuals living abroad can vote in Nebraska if they are U.S. citizens, have never resided in the United States, are not registered in another state, and have a parent who is a registered voter in Nebraska.

However, according to reporting by the Omaha World-Herald, which was later confirmed by Nebraska’s secretary of state's office, the language targeted by the RNC in its lawsuit is from a law passed in 2005, rather than the cited 2010 law. The 2005 law was passed during the George W. Bush administration when the GOP controlled both chambers of Congress.

In a statement to the World-Herald, U.S. Representative Mike Flood who was in the state legislature in 2005, said the original purpose of the law was to give "every opportunity" for "men and women serving our country overseas" to participate in the state elections. Flood said he supports the RNC’s lawsuit.

The RNC's complaint contends that Nebraska’s constitution strictly requires voters to be state residents, arguing that residency status cannot be inherited. The plaintiffs are seeking a court order to block election officials from issuing ballots to these voters.

“We're challenging a Nebraska law that allows people who have never lived in the state to vote in Nebraska elections,” Ally Triolo, the RNC’s national spokeswoman for its election integrity efforts, told the World-Herald last week in a statement. “It is against the Nebraska constitution.”

Are Other States Seeing the Same Fight?

Nebraska is the latest battleground in a coordinated Republican effort targeting overseas voting rules, hitting both competitive swing states and solid-red regions.

According to court filings, the RNC has initiated similar lawsuits in several states, including:

• North Carolina
• Michigan
• Virginia
• Arizona
• Colorado
• Nevada

The legal arguments across these states remain consistent: Republicans argue that state constitutions require physical residency and do not permit voting by citizens who have never lived within state borders.

The courts have yielded mixed results so far. Michigan judges rejected a similar challenge, upholding the state’s protections for overseas voters. However, a state court in North Carolina recently ruled in favor of Republicans against “never-resident” voters, a decision that has catalyzed similar legal actions across the country.

How Many Voters Could Be Impacted?

The contested Nebraska law stems from the federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, signed by former President Barack Obama in 2009 to streamline the voting process for military personnel and citizens living abroad.

Newsweek could not determine if there were Nebraska-level numbers for the specific demographic being challenged by the RNC’s lawsuit.

Nationally, the Federal Voting Assistance Program estimated that roughly 2.8 million voting-age U.S. citizens lived abroad in 2022. The subgroup of citizens who have never lived in the U.S. is considered a fraction of that total. Roughly 37 states and Washington, D.C., allow some form of voting for this demographic.

Given Nebraska’s population and relatively small overseas-voter pool, it’s unlikely that the affected population numbers in the tens of thousands.

Why This Matters Beyond Nebraska

The lawsuit arrives as Trump has pushed for a series of nationwide election changes. Among the most prominent is the Republican-backed SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration and impose additional election administration requirements that supporters say are necessary to prevent ineligible voting.

Trump has repeatedly promoted the legislation as a top priority and has argued for broader federal involvement in election rules ahead of the midterms.

At the same time, the administration has supported efforts aimed at identifying noncitizens on voter rolls, including expanded use of federal databases to verify citizenship status. Those efforts have generated their own legal challenges, with opponents arguing they could lead to legitimate voters being wrongly flagged or removed from registration lists.

For critics, the Nebraska lawsuit is part of a larger pattern of attempts to restrict access to the ballot. Supporters of the lawsuit, meanwhile, argue it is a straightforward constitutional question about whether people who have never lived in a state should be allowed to participate in its elections.

Regardless of the outcome, the case highlights how election administration and voting eligibility have become central fronts in a broader national political battle over who can vote, how elections are run, and what role federal and state governments should play in setting those rules.

What Happens Next

Evnen told the Nebraska Examiner he has turned the lawsuit over to the state’s attorney general, and if it's determined that part of the election law is unconstitutional, Evnen said the state will not register residents under it.

Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Jason Lemon and Anthony Murray.

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This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 5:03 PM.