The Trump administration and the Republican National Committee have quietly launched an offensive against a small but potentially important group of voters: Americans who have never lived in the United States.
“Never residents” or “never-resided” voters — the children of Americans abroad — are eligible for passports and must file taxes. In 37 states, plus the District of Columbia, they can vote in federal elections (and sometimes state and local races) wherever an American parent last lived.
According to a 2017 report published by the Federal Voting Assistance Program, 11,590 never-resided Americans were registered to vote as of 2016. Experts say that number has likely swelled in the last decade along with the overall overseas voter count, with higher per-capita numbers in states like Alaska and Michigan.
The RNC is now arguing in court that those laws are illegal and that Americans who have never established residency in the United States should not be allowed to vote in the midterms. Since 2024, the RNC has filed lawsuits challenging those rights in eight states. In June, a North Carolina judge became the first to rule in favor of the RNC.
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“Enforcing citizenship and residency requirements isn’t disenfranchisement — it’s following the law,” RNC spokesperson Ally Triolo said in a statement to The Washington Sun.
The RNC says these suits don’t impact “military members or overseas voters who previously lived in a state, both of whom remain legally eligible to vote under state and federal law.”
Several of the pending cases were brought by Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, a conservative political action committee. Lawyers for the group argue that because overseas voters — including members of the military — register as Democrats at higher rates than domestic voters, allowing never-resident Americans to vote creates a “state-imposed disadvantage” for Republican candidates.
The Department of Defense, which is congressionally mandated to support all overseas and military voting, meanwhile, has taken the position that all never-residents should be ineligible to vote. In August, the Pentagon quietly removed all references to never-resided voters from key elections materials, including a form used by overseas voters to register and request ballots. The Federal Voting Assistance Guide was suddenly taken offline in August and republished without more than 20 pages of guidance for never-resided voters.
On Oct. 1, the Democratic National Committee sued the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget on behalf of never-resided voters, arguing that the DoD had declared “‘a false ‘emergency’ to alter voter-registration materials without notice and comment in an effort to disenfranchise eligible American citizens.”
In the suit, the DNC notes that prior to Sept. 1, the Federal Post Card Application included a line allowing citizens to check, “I am a U.S. citizen living outside the country, and I have never lived in the United States.’”
Sean O’Keefe, the Pentagon’s deputy under secretary for personnel and readiness, wrote in his Aug. 13 letter to OMB that people “who have never resided in the United States are not within the class of voters” covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, a 1986 law that standardized military and overseas voting procedures.
OMB granted O’Keefe’s “emergency” request because there was “insufficient time” before the federal election to follow normal procedures.
Martha McDevitt-Pugh, international chair of Democrats Abroad, said the changes followed a frustrating summer for overseas voters, when the Federal Voting Assistance Program website, the online voting resource chartered by Congress and run by the Pentagon, was plagued by broken links and “temporarily unavailable” pages.
“We use that website extensively,” McDevitt-Pugh said.
According to FVAP’s 2024 report to Congress, there are approximately 2.2 million voting-age citizens living abroad. Federal law requires overseas ballots to be mailed by Sept. 19. Because so many states cleaned out voter rolls over the last two years, Democrats Abroad recommended that overseas voters resubmit their applications before the midterms. Many of them were trying to do that in August, when the FVAP website was down.
In a statement to The Washington Sun, a Pentagon spokesperson characterized the FVAP issues as a “routine update” that would “actively protect voting rights and eliminate voter confusion.”
“This includes updated online guidance on August 31 that clarifies instructions and voter eligibility requirements regarding the Federal Post Card Application,” the spokesperson said.
The DNC, Democrats Abroad and voting rights advocates argue those changes are illegal and that never-residents are being discriminated against because of “perceived political preferences,” according to the DNC lawsuit. They warn that there could be chaos in especially close races where overseas ballots that are counted after Election Day could determine the outcome.
“We’re concerned for every voter having their right to vote and having that right be treated as it should be treated and counted,” McDevitt-Pugh said.
Valencia Richardson, a senior legal counsel at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center and a former Fulbright scholar who has voted from abroad, pointed out that even when civilians move overseas, they often do so “in service to the United States.” The population includes many diplomats and military contractors whose children turn 18 before ever living in their parents’ home country.
“I like to call them not-yet-resided voters,” McDevitt-Pugh said, pointing out that many Americans who first cast ballots as “never resided” end up moving to the U.S. at some point.
That fluidity is one reason it’s impossible to know how many voters are potentially being disenfranchised by the changes, said Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, a scholar at the University of Kent who studies the American diaspora and voting patterns. She raised two children in Brussels, both of whom cast never-resided ballots in 2020 but have since lived in the United States.
Klekowski von Koppenfels pointed out that while UOCAVA, the law that standardized overseas voting, did not explicitly mention never-resided Americans, the follow-up 2010 Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act (UMOVA) does. That act brought overseas voting into the internet age and encouraged, but did not require, all states to extend federal voting rights to never-resided Americans.
“These are U.S. citizens who are required to file taxes and when applicable, register for the draft,” Klekowski von Koppenfels said. Challenges to their voting rights amount to “taxation without representation,” she said.
North Carolina used UMOVA as the basis for its own military and overseas voting bill, which passed unanimously in 2011. It only came under scrutiny in 2024, when a Republican candidate for state Supreme Court lost by a narrow margin and challenged all overseas ballots.The RNC subsequently sued to eliminate never-resided voting rights in the state and won.
“This is a clear win for fair and lawful elections,” RNC Chair Joe Gruters said in a news release touting the ruling. “The court upheld the North Carolina Constitution and made clear that only North Carolina residents can vote in the state. The RNC will keep fighting to ensure only eligible citizens can vote.”
The DNC did not appeal, and it declined to comment on the ruling. Never-resided voting has been upheld in several other states where the RNC has sued, including Nebraska and Michigan. In both of those states, the RNC has appealed.
Challenges also are pending in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Jersey and Virginia.
“The DNC is fighting to ensure American citizens are able to participate in our democracy no matter where they are in the world and hold Trump accountable when they cast their ballot,” Dan Freeman, the DNC’s litigation director, said in a statement.
Overseas ballots typically are counted after Election Day. In 2024, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) won by 19,006 votes — a nailbiter election in which the state tabulated more than 21,000 votes from abroad, though the counts do not distinguish between overseas military ballots and other citizens who live abroad.
The Washington Sun queried the secretaries of state in three swing states that allow never-resided voting: Alaska, Maine and Michigan. In all three, elections officials pledged to count all overseas ballots, regardless of whether the voters used the August or September versions of the postcard registration form.
“We believe every United States citizen, including those living abroad, has the right to vote in federal elections, and we will do everything in our power to protect the rights of every eligible voter to participate in our democracy,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said.
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