The Republican National Committee is celebrating a major victory for clean elections after a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled that North Carolina’s State Board of Elections violated the state constitution by letting people who have never lived in the Tar Heel State cast ballots in federal elections.
Special Superior Court Judge Hoyt Tessener sided with the RNC and North Carolina Republican Party this week, slamming the door on a loophole the previous Democrat-controlled elections board tried to keep open even after higher courts already shut it down for state races, according toCarolina Journal.
This is the latest in a string of wins for election integrity in North Carolina, and a direct rebuke to officials who thought they could quietly expand voting rights to non-residents.
Judge Tessener reaffirmed what the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court had already made crystal clear: the state constitution requires residency to vote.
“Never residents” — U.S. citizens born abroad to parents or guardians who once lived in North Carolina but who themselves have never resided in the state — have no constitutional right to help pick North Carolina’s representatives in Congress or influence federal elections here.
The previous Democrat-led State Board of Elections had issued a directive allowing these never-residents to vote in both state and federal elections.
After the state Supreme Court struck down the practice for state and local races, the board stopped counting those ballots for state offices… but kept allowing them for federal contests.
The RNC and NCGOP, who brought the lawsuit, are rightly celebrating the ruling as a common-sense restoration of constitutional order.
Wait I was told this never happened?https://t.co/KpY5fa1k91
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon)May 27, 2026
Source: The Gateway Pundit
