Republican National Committee

The Republican National Committee, along with RITE PAC and Arlington GOP chair Matthew Hurtt, has filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court for the City of Richmond accusing Virginia election officials of violating the state constitution by registering and counting ballots from U.S. citizens who have never lived in Virginia. The suit targets a state statute that lets certain overseas citizens vote in Virginia based on it being their parent’s last eligible voting residence, a provision the RNC says conflicts with constitutional residency requirements and improperly allows 'nonresidents' — including people who have never lived in the United States — to cast Virginia ballots. RNC chair Joe Gruters and election‑integrity spokeswoman Ally Triolo frame the case as part of a broader campaign to "close that loophole" nationwide, noting that at least 27 other states have similar rules and that this is the fourth such challenge after filings in Michigan, Arizona and North Carolina. Federal law already lets military members and their spouses vote absentee from their last U.S. residence, but the Virginia rule extends that right to some of their overseas-born adult children and to children of former Virginia residents now living abroad. With roughly 2.8 million voting‑age U.S. citizens overseas and midterms approaching, the case spotlights a quiet but growing partisan fight over how far states can go in enfranchising Americans abroad before, as critics put it, they dilute the votes of current residents.