Nebraska Supreme Court Turns Away GOP Challenge to State Voting Law
The Nebraska Supreme Court has rejected a Republican-led challenge to a state law that allows some U.S. citizens who have never lived in Nebraska to vote there, leaving the provision in place less than three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections.
In an unsigned 6-1 decision Friday, the court ruled that the Republican National Committee and two Lancaster County voters had not shown the 2005 law was unconstitutional in every circumstance.
The statute permits a U.S. citizen living abroad who has never resided in the country to register in a Nebraska county if a parent is registered to vote there and the person meets other requirements. Eligible voters cannot register in another state, and Nebraska law makes registering or voting in multiple states or counties a felony.
The RNC, Lancaster County voter Jack Riggins and Lancaster County Engineer Pam Dingman argued that the law conflicts with Article VI, Section 1 of Nebraska’s Constitution, which sets residency requirements for qualified voters. Their lawsuit contended that allowing people who had never physically lived in Nebraska to vote there diluted the votes of lawful voters and violated the state Constitution.
Republican Secretary of State Bob Evnen and Republican Attorney General Mike Hilgers defended the law. They argued that Nebraska precedent defines voting residence through legal domicile, which does not always require a person to have physically lived in the state.
That distinction proved central to the court’s ruling. The state offered the example of a U.S. citizen born in South America to missionaries from Saunders County who intended to return to Nebraska. The child, the state argued, could acquire the parents’ Nebraska domicile despite never having lived there.
The court agreed that Nebraska precedent recognizes children acquire their parents’ domicile at birth and may retain it until establishing a new domicile. Because the law could constitutionally apply in at least one circumstance, the court said, the challengers did not meet the demanding standard for striking it down on its face.
The justices relied in part on an 1895 Nebraska Supreme Court decision that treated “residence” and “domicile” as synonymous under the state Constitution.
The decision keeps the 2005 statute in effect for the coming election and ends a case that moved quickly through the courts as the midterms approached.
The provision applies to a small number of voters, according to state figures. As of July, 116 overseas citizens were registered under the law, including 30 in Lancaster County. Six of the 116 voted in Nebraska’s May 12 primary, including one Lancaster County voter.
In the 2024 general election, 72 people registered under the disputed provision cast ballots out of 965,236 voters statewide, or approximately 0.007 percent of the total.
Justice William Cassel was the sole dissenter. His disagreement focused on whether the plaintiffs had standing to sue, rather than on whether the law was unconstitutional. The majority found Dingman had standing because she is an elected official seeking reelection, but concluded the RNC and Riggins lacked standing.
Cassel would have dismissed the entire case, arguing that the number of ballots involved was too small to establish a concrete injury to Dingman.
“The purported harm resembles a droplet in a deluge,” Cassel wrote.
The lawsuit did not challenge voting rights for military personnel or Nebraska residents who moved overseas. The RNC had specifically said its case targeted the separate provision covering citizens who had never lived in Nebraska.