Did you know some people can vote in Alaska even if they’ve never set foot here?

By SUZANNE DOWNING

July 12, 2026 – A little-known feature of election law has become the focus of growing legal and political debate: In most states, certain US citizens who have never actually lived in the United States can still vote in American elections. Alaska is one of those.

The issue has prompted lawsuits in multiple states, renewed calls for Congress to establish a national standard, and questions about whether the current patchwork of state laws still makes sense.

The map circulating online accurately reflects the Federal Voting Assistance Program’s guidance as it existed in mid-2025. According to the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program, 38 states and the District of Columbia provide some avenue for certain “never-resided” US citizens to vote absentee.

Those laws generally apply to people born overseas to American parents, but who have never established residence in the United States themselves. In most cases, they vote using a parent’s last US domicile.

Importantly, these laws do not apply to foreign nationals or non-citizens. Federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections. The debate concerns US citizens born abroad.

Here’s how it applies to Alaska:

The obvious question is: Why Congress has never created a single nationwide rule?

The answer lies in the Constitution’s division of authority over elections.

Under Article I, state legislatures are primarily responsible for establishing election procedures, while Congress has authority to regulate certain aspects of federal elections. Historically, Congress has largely left voter qualification and residency rules to the states.

Congress did act in 1986 by passing the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which guarantees absentee voting rights for military personnel and many Americans living overseas in federal elections. However, UOCAVA does not require states to allow voting by citizens who have never lived in the United States. Instead, Congress left that policy decision to each individual state.

The result is today’s patchwork, where some states allow these citizens to vote only in federal elections. Others permit participation in state elections as well. Several states prohibit the practice entirely.

That variation has fueled recent litigation, with Republican organizations, including the Republican National Committee, having challenged “never-resided” voting laws in several states, arguing they conflict with state constitutional residency requirements. The results have been mixed, with some courts upholding the laws while others have ruled against them or continue to hear challenges.

Congress has also begun considering whether federal law should be changed.

One proposal introduced in the current Congress — the PROVE Act — would amend UOCAVA by requiring non-military overseas voters to provide evidence of a qualifying residence connection before receiving absentee ballots. As of now, the bill has been introduced but has not become law.

Supporters of tighter residency rules argue that voting should be tied to an individual’s own connection to a state rather than a parent’s residence decades earlier. Some have proposed limiting absentee voting to people who have personally lived in a state or who otherwise establish their own residency.

Others have suggested broader changes, such as allowing overseas citizens to vote only where they previously lived or where they currently own property. Property ownership alone, however, generally does not establish voting residency under existing state laws, which typically rely on legal domicile rather than ownership of real estate.

Opponents of changing the current system argue that many affected voters are children of military personnel, diplomats, missionaries, and other Americans serving abroad who have genuine family ties to the United States. They contend eliminating these provisions would disenfranchise U.S. citizens through circumstances beyond their control.

The actual size of the “never-resided” voting population appears relatively small compared with the broader overseas voting population. Most overseas absentee voters are former US residents or members of military families covered under UOCAVA.

For now, Congress has chosen not to impose a nationwide standard, leaving each state to determine whether citizens born abroad who have never lived in the United States may vote using a parent’s last state of residence.

As lawsuits continue and new legislation is introduced, that longstanding balance between state authority and federal election law is likely to remain an active issue heading into future election cycles.