Republican state and national party groups are asking a Wake County judge to rule that people who have “never resided” in North Carolina cannot register or vote in the state’s elections. In a new filing on March 11, 2026, the GOP sought summary judgment in Kivett v. North Carolina State Board of Elections and pushed the court to either segregate or toss out ballots cast by those voters. The fight is barreling toward a four-day bench trial set for April 20, 2026, in Wake County Superior Court, a showdown that could rewrite the rules for overseas and military voters.
GOP Files For Summary Judgment
The March 11 motion, signed by attorneys from Nelson Mullins, zeroes in on N.C. Gen. Stat. § 163-258.2(1)(e). Republican plaintiffs argue the statute cannot be stretched to let “never residents” vote in state or local races at all. Listed plaintiffs include Telia Kivett, Wanda Nelson Fowler, the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party, according to Carolina Journal.
The filing flatly declares that “summary judgment is appropriate,” insisting there is “no genuine issue of material fact” that could justify the State Board’s current approach. Electronically submitted at 9:46 a.m. on March 11, 2026, the motion asks the judge to block the board from counting ballots cast by never residents or, at minimum, to set those ballots aside as provisional while eligibility is sorted out, per Carolina Journal.
Who ‘Never Residents’ Are And Why They Matter
State court opinions and prior reporting describe “never residents” as U.S. citizens, often adult children of North Carolina residents, who were born or have lived abroad and never actually established a North Carolina residence themselves. That relatively obscure category suddenly became pivotal after the 2024 election, when a North Carolina Supreme Court race turned into a protracted legal brawl. Judges ordered counties to flag and, in some rulings, remove never-resident ballots from statewide tallies. The question potentially touches more than 60,000 challenged votes and helped fuel months of litigation, The Washington Post reported.
What Plaintiffs Want And The Stakes
The Republican plaintiffs want a clear declaration that never residents are simply ineligible to vote in North Carolina’s state and local races. They also want county election boards ordered to segregate or exclude ballots already identified as coming from those voters. Their lawyers contend that federal law does not speak directly to never-resident voting and that the state constitution limits the franchise to actual state residents. The motion further asks the court to bar the State Board from counting these ballots while the legal fight plays out and as the case heads into the four-day bench trial beginning April 20, 2026, according to WBT.
Political Backdrop: Board Appointments
The case is unfolding right after lawmakers rewired how the State Board of Elections is chosen, a seemingly technical move that now looms large. The General Assembly shifted appointment power for the board to the state auditor, a change that helped produce a 3-2 Republican majority on the panel in 2025. That transfer, enacted as part of a Session Law often referred to as Senate Bill 382, has already triggered separate court battles over whether lawmakers can reshuffle appointment authority at will. Reporting notes that the board’s partisan makeup matters because it oversees challenges, ballot cures and other procedures that can swing nail-biter races, according to Courthouse News Service.
Advocates Raise Concerns Over Accuracy
Voting-rights advocates and local reporting have warned that the lists of supposed “never residents” are far from airtight. Public data suggest many of the flagged voters actually have ties to North Carolina. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice found that roughly 25% of an earlier list had residency indicators pointing to prior North Carolina residence. Follow-up reporting by Popular Information and others prompted election officials to promise more robust verification for challenged voters. Advocates say a broad, one-size-fits-all rejection of these ballots could disproportionately hit military families, overseas workers and Americans born abroad who maintain longstanding connections to the state.
Legal Implications And Road Ahead
The GOP motion casts the dispute as a straight-up clash between state constitutional residency rules and a state statute, arguing that the judge can resolve it as a pure question of law on summary judgment. If the court sides with the plaintiffs, county boards could be ordered to immediately exclude or segregate the targeted ballots, a ruling that would almost certainly be appealed and could invite conflicting directions from state and federal courts. The broader saga has already crossed into federal court. In May 2025, U.S. Chief District Judge Richard Myers issued an order that led to certification of Allison Riggs as the winner of the contested Supreme Court race, underscoring how quickly these battles can hop between court systems, per AP News.
Election watchers say the April bench trial will be critical in deciding whether courts treat never-resident voting as a statutory oddity to be tidied up by administrators or as a constitutional barrier that forces ballots to be cast aside. Whatever the trial judge decides, the ruling is almost certain to be appealed and could shape how overseas and military voters participate in North Carolina elections well beyond the 2026 midterms.
