The NPR Politics Podcast - Republicans Push Voting Restrictions On U.S. Citizens Living Abroad

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

Republicans, both in Congress and at the state level, are continuing a push to restrict voting by U.S. citizens living abroad. We discuss what those restrictions could look like and what they could mean for voters, including those who live in the country.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, voting correspondent Hansi Lo Wang, and voting correspondent Miles Parks.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

On NPR's Wild Card podcast, Jeff Hiller says fans of his character in somebody somewhere have a slogan. WWJD. What would Joel do? You know, in the 80s they had, what would Jesus do? God, you've been deified. Oh, no. This is what brought the Beatles down. Watch or listen to that wildcard conversation on the NPR app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is John at the starting line of a Chicago Marathon with 53,000 other runners. who are way too excited. This podcast was recorded at.

108 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, October 14th, 2025. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but with a little luck, I'll have crossed the finish line of my 25th marathon. Okay, here's the show. Wow, 25 marathon. That's amazing. I feel like we should have gotten the time sent from like mile 21 or something. You would have sounded like,

and it's, you're listening. Yeah. Also, I got questions about your knees. How are they doing? That sounds rough. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Hansi Luong. I also cover voting. And I'm Miles Parks. I am the third member of the NPR voting team. It's an all-voting team podcast, which is great because today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about how Republicans are continuing to push new voting restrictions for U.S. citizens living abroad. Hansi, you've been covering these efforts. Can you give us a quick overview of what you found? What we're seeing is the latest phase of a push that began during last year's presidential election. Last year, we saw multiple last-minute lawsuits in swing states like Michigan and North Carolina, and they challenged the legitimacy of certain overseas voters' balance. This included the balance of both military and civilian voters. And those lawsuits ended up getting toss, but new legal challenges have cropped up, including one in Arizona by the Republican

National Committee. And there have been proposals for new state laws, including in North Carolina. It's your state courts ruled there that certain overseas voters can no longer cast ballots in state and local elections there. And now there's a bill in North Carolina that could take away those overseas voters' ability to cast ballots in federal elections in North Carolina. So a lot going on. Okay, Hansi, I do want to back up a second. I want to be clear about who we're talking about here. When we're talking about overseas voters, like my perception is that this is usually military, right? Right. That has been the case historically, but in recent years, you know, starting with the 2016 election, we've seen actually civilian overseas voters outnumbering military

voters. And to be clear, we're talking about all U.S. citizens. Some moved abroad, some were born abroad to U.S. citizens. Some are registered with the address that they last had in the United States. and this is under a federal law called the Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act, UOCAVA for short, and it requires states to allow military and civilian overseas voters to cast absentee ballots in federal elections. And things do get complicated if you're a U.S. citizen born abroad and have never lived in the U.S. so you personally don't have a previous U.S. address to register with. And that is the case for some U.S. citizens whose parents served abroad

in the U.S. military. So 37 states, Blanche Washington, D.C., allow those overseas non-resident voters to register using the previous U.S. address of a relative, usually apparent or legal guardian. But this is the group of voters that this Republican push to restrict overseas voting has been mainly focusing on in Arizona. The Republican National Committee is arguing allowing those overseas non-resident voters to register in the state violates Arizona's constitution. And I should also mention there's a bill in Congress backed by a group of House Republicans that calls for requiring all overseas voters to have a, quote, current residence in the state that they're registered in or that their spouse, parent or guardian has a, quote, current residence. Otherwise, they could register to vote for federal elections in D.C., which is represented in Congress by a non-voting delegate. So a lot of proposals here that could upend an already complicated voting system for U.S. citizens living abroad.

I do feel like there's something that's happened a lot this year, though, which is that people who are born here and our citizens kind of think of citizenship as a very binary thing that you're either a U.S. citizen or you're not. A, there's like a lot of different degrees of gray area going from non-citizen to citizen. But also there's just a lot more complicated cases, I think, than people realize. And I think that presents a lot of questions when it comes to elections when you think about people who have never lived here. Yeah. And mostly Republicans, we should say, like this effort to create new restrictions. I mean, is this a shift in their position? Oh, absolutely. I mean, Yuacava, the law that Hansi mentioned was signed by Ronald Reagan. And previously, it was mostly military voters who were using it more than civilian voters. And so that made it pretty simple for Republicans who view themselves as the party that supports the military. I remember just a few years ago, I was interviewing the Republican Secretary of State of West Virginia, a guy named Mack Warner. and he was rolling out new internet voting options for military voters because he was saying that it's basically just really messed up that there is this low turnout rate for the people who are giving the most to the U.S. And yet we're also seeing in different parts of the country, Republicans work to kind of pull away voting rights from the population specifically. It seems like because the politics around this continue to change and more civilians start using these methods as opposed to just the military voters, generally speaking, the Democratic Party has had a more effective turnout machine for citizens living abroad. And so that population has voted more democratic leaning in recent years. And so it seems like Republicans in many states are looking at that and kind of playing politics. Yeah. And Hansi, is that what has prompted this change? Is it because Democrats have gotten better at courting these voters? Or is it a more complicated story here? I talk to overseas voting advocates and they tell me they see this as a Republican reaction to a Democratic push last year.

to increase voter registration among U.S. citizens living abroad. And we did see President Trump, who was the then candidate in 2024, posting on social media. This is in September 2024, you know, last months of voting, without evidence, claiming that Democrats, quote, want to dilute the true vote of our beautiful military and their families, unquote. And this partisan angle is also being brought up by this Republican National Committee's lawsuit in Arizona, claiming that allowing, overseas non-resident voters to register in this state gives non-Republicans a competitive advantage in elections. I will also note that, you know, when you think about this voting block, it is kind of at the nexus of a lot of the issues post-2020. When you think about this sort of far-right election integrity advocates who have been trying to push back against vote by mail, who are very skeptical

of everything when it comes to technology in voting, a lot of these voters, this is the only voting block that in many states you're allowed to vote by fax, by email, by online portal. Thousands of these voters vote online, literally right now in 2024 and in 2020, and the ones who don't are voting by mail. And so if you think about, and then you add to that that many of these voters also have more lenient deadlines. So they're often the ballots that are the last ones to be returned and counted, which as we know in previous elections, those are the ballots that get the most skepticism because they're when you talk about the late arriving ballots that change the results. A lot of times it is these ballots that are coming from far away across the world that are allowed to be counted.

And so I think there's something about that that also primes the election integrity world to be a little bit more skeptical this population. Yeah, also an effort by Republicans to limit when ballots can come in, like whether ballots count if they come in after election day. Well, Hansi, you spoke to some of the voters, though, that are affected by these policies. Can you give me a sense of how they feel about all this? There's a lot of uncertainty among overseas voters, including this woman I spoke to Kate Sable, U.S. citizen, registered to vote in North Carolina from Canada, where she's been voting in U.S. elections for more than two decades. And she now is two adult sons, born abroad, U.S. citizens, but because of North Carolina's state court rulings, her sons can no longer vote in state and local elections.

And she's worried that in North Carolina, rules could change again. her sons won't be able to vote in federal elections going forward. Contemplating the thought of not being able to or my children not being able to just makes me realize how precious the right to vote is and just how important it is as a citizen of a democratic country. I should also mention that, you know, overseas voting has historically at a really low turnout compared to U.S. citizens here in the United States. It's 3.4% turnout for overseas voters in 2022 compared to 62.5% for domestic voters. All right. We have to take a quick break. More in a moment. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

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the first funny answer is a study woodworking. I'm Jesse Thorne. On Bullseye, we get career advice from Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec and more. That's Bullseye. Find us in the NPR app on Maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And we've been discussing proposals that would restrict voting by American citizens living abroad.

They're among the eligible voters who could have a harder time accessing the ballot because of proposals Republicans have been making in the name of, quote, election integrity. But voters who live in the U.S. could also be affected by some of these efforts. Hansi, can you give us a few examples of some of these proposals we're talking about that you've been watching? Right. Well, I think we should keep in mind that, you know, eligible voters. already have to sign sworn statements about their U.S. citizenship when they're registering to vote. But there's an executive order by President Trump signed back in March and a bill passed by the House of Representatives and they call for requiring applicants to show documents proving U.S. citizenship. There's also part of President Trump's executive order, which is currently under litigation,

that tries to put pressure on states that count absentee ballots that are postmarked by election day, but received afterwards, and he's going to really complicate voting by overseas voters. I think it's really interesting. When you think about for years, as I've been reporting on elections, what election experts always say is that anytime you restrict access to the ballot, the people who are most impacted are low propensity voters, general. It's kind of like a contruism. And normally when we say low propensity voters, we're talking about the voting blocks, like people with lower education, lower incomes, like those are people who have been traditionally found to vote at lower rates. But I think it's really interesting to start thinking about overseas and military voters in the same bucket. When we talk about how low the turnout rate has been traditionally over the last few years for this group, if you make voting harder, it is only going to get worse.

Yeah, like the hurdles are higher for people who are less likely to vote. Yes. Yeah. Well, can you spell it out first, though, Hansi, like, how is it, I mean, besides, like, creating hurdles for folks who may not be as inclined to vote, like, how do these new limits make it harder for people to vote? These proposals for showing documentary proof of citizenship. I talked to some advocates of military voters and some of these folks who are on the move for the job, relocated, and families on the move, it's often hard to get resettled in a new place and finding those documents can be extra hard for those families. And so that's a potential challenge to folks who do want to vote, do want to participate. But if these requirements are put into place, may have that.

that much harder of a time to get signed up or to get their ballot counted. And there's also a risk that comes with this push by the Trump administration to put pressure on those states that count absentee ballots, again, postmarked by Election Day, but received afterwards trying to get those ballots not counted. And that really risks the votes of some certain overseas voters who, you know, they are running into a lot of issues, complications with the postal system. They try really hard to get something in the mail and get their own time, but a lot of times it's out of their hands and that could really risk their votes getting not counted. I mean, Maas, I do want to talk about whether there's like any practical implications for people who are statesides, like U.S. citizens who do live in the country.

I'm thinking about the midterm elections next year specifically, but I mean, do you have a sense of whether this could affect folks here? I think it's really so much can change between now and midterms. I think that's part of it is that a lot of the things we're talking about are state-specific. And so it's hard to say even right now what the rules of play are going to be a year from now. But any restriction, I was thinking as Hansi was talking about the ballot deadlines changing and when we saw that in COVID. And it feels like every week leading up to the 2020 election, there were rules changing about when your ballot needed to be returned, whether your county was going to have a drop box. All of that stuff requires so much public education. And so I guess I've been hearing from election officials that what they're hoping, as we get further and further away from COVID, that the rules can be set early.

So that way, if deadlines are going to be changing about when a voter needs to have a ballot to their election official, they know about it before a couple weeks before the election or something like that. Or if a voter does need to verify their citizenship, they know about that before August before the election or something like that. So that's going to be really something to watch if there are more restrictions put in place over the next year when they happen, because that's going to determine how many voters are. impacted. Yeah. Yeah, I will say someone who's looked into this, like states that have like a more forgiving, longer, I guess, grace periods for voters to return ballots have more of them that come in after election day. And it's been that way for a while for them. So it would be a big change. It would affect like a lot of voters. Are there any other voting storylines that you're watching as midterms get closer? I mean, the big one for me is the Department of Justice has sued eight states now asking to get access to their voter list. And it's very unclear to the election officials in those states. Mostly they've been Democratic states, a couple Republican states as well, who basically said, no, the Justice Department does not have a right to our voting lists. And those cases, the government is shut down right now. So the Department of Justice asked for a stay in those cases.

But that's the biggest thing I'm watching is just kind of the legal arguments for whether the federal government does have access to that data and whether more comes out about why DOJ wants that data at all. Yeah. And specifically for overseas voters, I think a lot of folks are watching. to see what happens to these lawsuits over President Trump's executive order on voting. Many parts of that order are currently on hold, and we're watching to see more court rulings and likely appeals after that, and watching to see if any of these state-level proposals make it through and could really change voting for overseas voters. All right, well, let's leave it there for today.

I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Hansi Luong. I also cover voting. And I'm Miles Parks. I also cover voting. This was fun, guys. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.