Nebraska Supreme Court Rules 6-1 Against RNC Challenge to Overseas Voter Registration Law

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled against a Republican National Committee challenge to a state voting law on Oct. 16, 2026. In an unsigned, 6-1 decision, the justices said the challengers, the RNC and two Lancaster County voters, “failed to prove the statute is unconstitutional on its face,” per the Nebraska Examiner. The challenged 2005 law allows U.S. citizens who have never resided in Nebraska but who have a parent registered to vote in one Nebraska county to register in that county. The Examiner reports that the secretary of state and attorney general offered a constitutional application of the law: a voter born in South America to Saunders County missionaries who intended to return home.

Justice William Cassel dissented because, he said, he would have dismissed the case outright. Citing data from the secretary of state’s office, he noted that as of July, 116 overseas Nebraska voters were registered under the targeted statute, six of whom voted in the May 12 primary, and wrote: “The purported harm resembles a droplet in a deluge.”

Context: this is a state-court ruling under the Nebraska Constitution, separate from the federal fight over the removal of the “never resided” checkbox from the overseas voter form (2026-08-28–omb-approves-pentagon-emergency-removal-never-resided-checkbox-overseas-voter-form-dnc-sues-oct-1), which the midterms watchlist tracks as DNC v. DoD and OMB. The Nebraska docket number was not in the article.