Pentagon sought to eliminate checkbox for citizens who never lived in US
The Democratic National Committee filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday against the Trump administration, challenging the Pentagon’s last-minute changes to the form that overseas U.S. citizens use to register and request absentee ballots. The complaint targets an August decision to strip from the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) the option that allows U.S. citizens who have never lived in the country to identify themselves when requesting a ballot.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asks a judge to declare that the changes violated the Administrative Procedure Act and to set them aside. With the deadline to dispatch overseas ballots already passing, the form revisions could affect how an estimated 2.2 million voting-eligible U.S. citizens abroad request their mail ballots in the 2026 midterms.
Until recently, the FPCA gave overseas voters four options for describing their geographic location: active military service, living outside the United States with intent to return, living outside the United States and uncertain about return, and a U.S. citizen who had never lived in the country. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia allow citizens born abroad to vote in at least some elections even if they have never lived in the country, according to the DNC complaint.
In August, as the deadline to send out overseas ballots approached, the Pentagon — the agency that oversees the form — submitted two emergency requests to modify the FPCA. Among the changes, the Pentagon sought to eliminate the option allowing voters to say they were citizens who had never lived in the U.S. The Office of Management and Budget approved the requests within days. NPR first reported the changes earlier in the week.
Sean O’Keefe, the deputy under secretary of war for personnel and readiness, told OMB in an August letter that the department had recently become aware of the option on the form for citizens who had never lived in the U.S. He said the changes were necessary because the existing versions “may confuse voters about the information they are required to provide under federal law.” He added that the changes could not go through a normal process because the election was less than 90 days away, and therefore had to be rushed.
The DNC argues that justification is pretextual. “The government has at least fifteen years of experience issuing guidance to U.S. citizens born and remaining abroad, reviewing public comments concerning use of the FPCA by these applicants, and modifying the FPCA to best serve these eligible voters,” the lawsuit states. The complaint also says the government failed to follow proper procedure by not allowing for public comment in the Federal Register.
Ken Martin, chair of the DNC, said in a statement that the changes amount to an effort to disenfranchise eligible voters. “Trump and Republicans are so desperate to hang on to power that they are trying to eliminate the way some American citizens abroad register to vote and request mail ballots,” Martin said. “They know that Americans, both at home and abroad, are going to reject their destructive agenda, and they are scrambling to disenfranchise as much of the electorate as possible by any means necessary.” The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment, according to the Guardian.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president and CEO of the U.S. Vote Foundation, which works on helping overseas Americans vote, said the form change does not strip anyone of the legal right to vote but could make that right harder to exercise. “The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act guarantees U.S. citizens abroad, along with service members and their families, the right to vote, and nothing in it requires a plan to return,” she said. “Changing the form does not change that right. It changes whether a voter recognizes themselves on it.”
A DNC official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the lawsuit, said overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. will encounter a form that no longer matches their circumstances. “If an overseas voter goes on to the FPCA website, goes to get their Federal Postcard Application to request their ballot, they’re going to see this form and they have to sign it under penalty of perjury,” the official said. “They’re going to see that there is no longer the checkbox they’re used to checking. And the other options may not fit them accurately and they may not be able to comfortably or confidently sign that form and request their mail ballot.”
The Republican National Committee has separately pushed to prevent U.S. citizens who have never lived in the country from having their votes counted, suing in nine states challenging the policy of counting such ballots. A North Carolina court agreed with the RNC in one case, while several other courts have rejected the arguments. Other lawsuits remain pending. In August, around the time the Trump administration rushed through the form change, the RNC said it was “leading the fight to shut down a loophole that allows certain people who have never lived in a state to vote in its elections.”
It is not immediately clear how many U.S. citizens live abroad but have never lived in the country. A 2016 government report estimated there were about 11,590 such citizens, though the DNC believes the number has since increased. The Federal Voting Assistance Program puts the total number of voting-eligible U.S. citizens living abroad at 2.2 million, with the largest populations in Canada and the United Kingdom; about 11 percent of eligible overseas citizens voted in 2024.
“Regardless of the number of people at issue, as the DNC, we want to defend the rights of Americans to vote — of eligible U.S. citizens to vote at home and abroad,” the DNC official said. “It is simply offensive that the RNC is trying to outright disenfranchise eligible U.S. citizens. And it is offensive that [the Pentagon] would be joining that campaign just before the election.”