LINCOLN — A lawsuit led by the Republican National Committee challenging a Nebraska law allowing certain overseas voters to vote in the Cornhusker State is over.
Lancaster County District Judge Ryan Post ruled Wednesday that there was at least one constitutional application for the challenged law. As such, Post dismissed the challenge from the RNC and two Lancaster County voters with prejudice, meaning the RNC and the voters could not bring the same challenge again.
State law allows U.S. citizens who have never resided in Nebraska but have a parent registered to vote in one Nebraska county to register in one county. It would be a felony to register or vote in multiple states or counties.
To succeed, the RNC would have needed to establish that “no set of circumstances exists” which would allow the act to be valid, Post said.
“A statute is presumed to be constitutional, and all reasonable doubts are resolved in favor of its constitutionality,” Post wrote in a 13-page order.
The RNC and two Lancaster County voters, Jack Riggins and Pam Dingman, the elected Lancaster County engineer, argued the law “dilutes the votes of lawful Republican voters” and violates Article VI, Section 1 of the Nebraska Constitution, which defines a qualified voter as a U.S. citizen who “has resided within the state and the county and voting precinct for the terms provided by law.”
Attorneys for the RNC, Riggins and Dingman had no immediate comment Wednesday.
Post said attorneys for the RNC and Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen correctly identified an 1895 Nebraska Supreme Court case where the justices generally accepted that “residence” was synonymous with “domicile.”
Post also pointed to arguments from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office on behalf of Evnen in walking through at least one hypothetical instance where the law is constitutional.
In the hypothetical scenario, a U.S. citizen, “Joe,” is the son of missionaries who call Saunders County home but moved to South America, where Joe was born. The family continued to live in the foreign country and maintained a home in Saunders County, always with the intent to return home. The family did not change their domicile over time either.
“Under the foregoing authorities, Joe remains a Nebraska resident and domiciliary for voter qualification purposes under the state constitution, and he is ‘eligible to register to vote and vote in’ Saunders County under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 32-939(2),” Post wrote.
As of July, 116 overseas Nebraska voters were registered under the targeted statute, six of whom voted in the May primary, according to data from Evnen’s office.
During the May 12 primary election, there were 1,256,903 registered Nebraska voters. A total of 358,538 voters came out to vote, or 28.5%.
Special ballots must be mailed to some overseas voters registered to vote under the challenged law by Sept. 3. The deadline to certify the general election ballot this year is Sept. 11. Finalized ballots are then mailed to all other military and overseas voters by Sept. 18.
The general election is Nov. 3.
Originally published on nebraskaexaminer.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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