Nebraska court throws out RNC lawsuit targeting overseas voters

A Nebraska court Wednesday rejected the Republican National Committee’s lawsuit seeking to block certain U.S. citizens abroad from voting in the state, handing the national GOP another major loss in its escalating legal campaign against overseas voters.

Lancaster County District Court Judge Ryan Post denied the RNC’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the complaint with prejudice.

The lawsuit filed in June challenged a Nebraska law that allows U.S. citizens who live outside the country, are not registered to vote in another state and have at least one parent registered to vote in Nebraska, to register and vote in the state themselves.

The RNC argued that the law violated the Nebraska Constitution’s residency requirement by allowing nonresidents to vote in Nebraska elections.

But the court flatly rejected the RNC’s challenge, finding that the party failed to show the law is unconstitutional in all of its applications.

Post pointed to a hypothetical U.S. citizen born abroad to Nebraska-domiciled parents who never acquired a new domicile elsewhere and therefore remained a Nebraska resident for voting purposes. Because that voter would be constitutionally eligible to vote in Nebraska, the court concluded the challenged law was valid.

“The Court finds that the Secretary has identified at least one constitutional application of § 32-939(2) to defeat the facial challenge,” Post wrote. The court found no genuine issue of material fact and ruled that the RNC’s challenge failed as a matter of law.

The court noted that Nebraska lawmakers enacted the provision in 2005 to extend voting rights to the children of voters covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, known as UOCAVA, a federal law that protects ballot access for military and overseas voters. At the time, then-Secretary of State John Gale testified that the bill would allow the children of Nebraskan “missionaries,” “civilian contractors” and “military” members who had never lived in the United States to vote in Nebraska elections.

The ruling is a major defeat for the RNC, which has filed a wave of lawsuits across the country targeting so-called “never resident” voters — U.S. citizens born abroad who are eligible under state law to vote through a parent or other family connection to a state.

The Nebraska case also underscored how small this group of voters genuinely is. 

According to the order, the parties did not dispute that only 116 people are currently registered to vote in Nebraska under the challenged provision and that only six voted in the 2026 primary. 

In Lancaster County, where one of the plaintiffs is a candidate, 30 people are registered under the law and just one voted in the primary.

The court noted that Nebraska lawmakers enacted in 2005 the provision to extend voting rights to the children of UOCAVA-qualified citizens, including the children of missionaries, civilian contractors and military members who had never lived in the United States.

Wednesday’s ruling adds to the RNC’s setbacks in its broader campaign against overseas voters. In April, a Michigan court dismissed a similar Republican lawsuit seeking to block certain U.S. citizens abroad from voting through family ties to the state.

The Nebraska case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the RNC cannot refile with the same claim.