Pentagon drops 'never lived in the U.S.' option from overseas voter forms weeks before midterms

The Department of War has quietly rewritten the federal forms that Americans living abroad use to register and request absentee ballots, eliminating an option that let citizens born outside the United States declare they have never lived in the country. The change, pushed through under emergency authority that skipped the usual months of public review, lands weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections and days after the deadline for many states to begin mailing overseas ballots.

The revised Federal Post Card Application and Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot, the two standard forms that let uniformed service members, their families and civilian expatriates register and vote in federal elections, were updated in late August by the Federal Voting Assistance Program, the Pentagon office that administers them. Gone is a checkbox that for more than a decade allowed voters to identify as "a U.S. citizen living outside the country" who has "never lived in the United States." The two options left for non-military applicants require a sworn declaration that the voter either intends to return to the United States or is uncertain whether they will.

An emergency request, filed without public notice

The mechanism behind the change is laid out in a letter dated Aug. 28 from Sean O'Keefe, the department's deputy under secretary for personnel and readiness, to the Office of Management and Budget's regulatory affairs office. Citing the approaching election, O'Keefe asked OMB to bypass the standard Paperwork Reduction Act clearance process, which normally requires a public comment period before federal forms are altered, and to approve the revised forms the same day the letter was dated.

The request, filed through OMB's information-collection tracking system under reference number 202608-0704-009, argues that the prior form language "may confuse voters about the information they are required to provide under Federal law and their eligibility to use these forms." It states that people who are not in the uniformed services and have never resided in the United States fall outside the class of voters defined by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the 1986 law governing military and overseas voting, and that the checkbox therefore invited ineligible applicants to use the form.

OMB approved the request within days. Public notice followed only after the fact: the Federal Voting Assistance Program announced on social media that the forms "have been updated," then opened a public comment period on the change more than a week later. Formal guidance for state election officials was not posted until roughly a month after the forms had already changed, according to reporting by NPR, which first detailed the timeline. The Pentagon said in a statement that it has also notified election officials and voters directly by email, though it has not disclosed details of that outreach.

Who the change touches

The affected group is what election officials and advocacy groups call "never-resided" voters: U.S. citizens, often born abroad to American parents, who have no personal residency history in the United States. Many states and the District of Columbia allow such citizens to register and vote using the last address where a parent or legal guardian, including one serving in the military, was domiciled before leaving the country. The never-resided checkbox was added to the forms in 2013 at the request of state election officials and overseas voting advocates, according to Bob Carey, who ran the Federal Voting Assistance Program at the time and said he delayed the change until after the 2012 election so it would not disrupt that year's voting.

Since 2024, the Republican National Committee has filed lawsuits in eight states, including Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey and Virginia, arguing that state laws permitting never-resided citizens to vote conflict with state constitutions. In court filings, party officials have also argued that this bloc of voters is disproportionately non-Republican and that allowing them to cast ballots disadvantages GOP candidates. Rulings have gone against the challenges twice in Michigan, while a court in North Carolina sided with Republicans; related cases remain pending in Arizona and at least five other states. For now, eligible never-resided voters can still register through state-specific alternatives, and the Pentagon says state election offices may continue accepting the older version of the federal form.

'It's just very insulting'

Voting-rights advocates and military-family groups said they learned of the change only after it took effect, and several criticized both the substance of the revision and the process used to make it. Sarah Streyder, executive director of Secure Families Initiative, an advocacy group for military families that has separately challenged the administration's push to restrict mail-in voting this election cycle, said her organization was never consulted.

"What were the voices prompting this change? Where did this come from? Military families are stakeholders who should have been included, because we can speak most authoritatively on what truly causes confusion with these forms and what doesn't. That's our form you're messing with. And you didn't even ask us for the input. It's just very insulting."

Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president and chief executive of the U.S. Vote Foundation, an overseas-voter advocacy organization, said she expects the opposite of the Pentagon's stated goal. "The law hasn't changed. States still run this program the way Congress wrote it," she said, adding that rolling out a revised federal form inside the 90-day window before Election Day "doesn't give the states time to implement it, to train their people, to inform voters, to change instructions or any of it." She noted the timing follows the Republican National Committee's escalation of litigation against never-resided voting rules earlier this year. Carey, who now leads the veterans group National Defense Committee, said the department should be doing far more to publicize the change given how late in the voting calendar it arrived. The Pentagon has said only that the forms were revised to "eliminate voter confusion."

What happens next

Because UOCAVA requires states to transmit validly requested ballots to overseas and military voters no later than 45 days before Election Day, a deadline that fell on Sept. 19 this cycle, most states were already mailing ballots under the old rules by the time the new forms arrived. Election offices in the eight states facing Republican National Committee litigation, along with others weighing how to treat the removed category, will have to decide in the coming weeks whether to rely on state law to keep accepting never-resided registrations even as the federal form no longer names that category explicitly. The Federal Voting Assistance Program's public comment period on the change remains open, and advocacy groups say they intend to press the agency for a fuller account of what prompted the revision and who was consulted before it was made. With ballots already in transit for the Nov. 3 midterms, any further changes are unlikely to take effect before voters now navigating the new forms have cast their votes.