By james art Monday, October 21, 2024 | 5:53 p.m
Courts in Michigan and North Carolina on Monday rejected Republican attempts to disqualify the ballots of certain overseas voters.
Both cases targeted people who had never lived in the state but were born abroad to parents who were residents of the state. The Michigan case also targeted military spouses and overseas voters.
A state judge in Michigan dismissed the Republicans’ lawsuit because it was filed so late, less than a month before the Nov. 5 presidential election. But the judge also found that the election language that allowed those voters to vote was consistent with both state and federal law, as well as the Michigan constitution.
State Republicans and the Republican National Committee were among the plaintiffs in both cases, which were filed as part of a broader legal strategy against out-of-state voting in the presidential battleground states ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
The RNC did not immediately return requests for comment.
In North Carolina, a Wake County Superior Court judge denied a preliminary injunction that Republicans sought against the state election commission.
The decision will allow people who have never lived in the state but were born abroad to parents or guardians who are North Carolina residents to vote as usual in the November presidential election.
Republicans argued that North Carolina allows these “Never Residents” to vote under a 2011 state law that ignores the state constitution’s requirement that voters be residents of the state. They claim these ballots may be part of an elaborate scheme to steal the election, a claim for which there is no evidence.
In a ruling issued Monday, the judge said there was “absolutely no evidence” of such fraud in North Carolina and Republicans had failed to identify a single case involving the group of voters they targeted.
The Democratic National Committee intervened in the North Carolina case and told the court that many of the affected voters were children of US military personnel stationed overseas. He argued that the 11th-hour court filing on a law passed more than 13 years ago was intended to pre-sow distrust in this year’s election.
In Michigan, the judge noted that the language targeted in the Republican lawsuit has been in effect since 2017.
“A challenge could have been filed any time after 2017 and should have been filed at least earlier in the year leading up to the general election, not 28 days before,” Michigan District Court Judge Seema G. Patel said in the ruling issued on Monday.