(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) With President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress desperately trying to close loopholes in election integrity before it is too late, activist judges have pushed back in every direction.
Lawfare groups have challenged Trump on executive orders to ensure voter ID, as well as fighting back on a directive to end controversial “birthright citizenship” practices that facilitate birth tourism among foreign nationals.
Meanwhile, in North Carolina — one of the most critical battleground states for the upcoming midterms, which could help flip the Senate majority back to Democrats — a recent court ruling affirmed that some overseas voters who have never lived in the state could continue to vote in its federal elections.
Worse yet, it allows them to submit their ballots by fax or email, forgoing any possibility of election security and opening the door to potential ballot fraud — despite the fact that North Carolina recently passed a state law mandating voter ID.
Raleigh-based investigative reporter Stephen Horn, a Headline USA contributor, highlighted the issue in a recent post on X.
The great thing about being a US citizen living in a foreign country is that you don't even have to use the mail system to vote in our elections
In North Carolina, overseas voters can return their ballot online, or via email or fax
The courts just recently ruled that overseas… https://t.co/8oGmR7q4Lf pic.twitter.com/dybdJfOq3t
— Stephen Horn (@stephenehorn) April 3, 2026
“The great thing about being a US citizen living in a foreign country is that you don’t even have to use the mail system to vote in our elections,” he wrote.
The vulnerability comes courtesy of the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. According to North Carolina’s State Board of Elections, overseas voters must provide a photocopy of their ID and sign a Military–Overseas Voter Affirmation form. But the added facade of security only underscores the laxity of the process itself.
“You can sign with your mouse or finger if you receive them online,” it instructs would-be absentee voters. “The ballot return deadline via online/email or fax is 7:30 p.m. ET on Election Day.”
Ironically, a ruling from the state Supreme Court last year actually toughened the pre-existing 2011 law, which also allowed so-called never-residents to vote in state elections if the last U.S. state their parents resided in was North Carolina.
The law was challenged by Jefferson Griffin, a conservative running for the state Supreme Court, who was narrowly defeated under dubious circumstances in 2024 by far-left Justice Allison Riggs.
Reversing an appellate court decision, the state Supreme Court refused to toss some 60,000 ballots that Griffin had contested as being illegitimate for a variety of reasons, handing Riggs the election by a margin of 734 votes.
However, the high court’s conservative majority did concede in the ruling that overseas voters should be required to include a photocopy of their ID — something that voting officials had not previously required — and gave them 30 days after receiving written notice to do so.
The ruling also said that “never-residents” could not vote in state elections, although they could continue, per federal law, to do so in national elections.
Stunningly, even after being handed the de-facto victory, Riggs’s radical left-wing ally, Justice Anita Earls, issued a bitter dissent, indicating that her colleagues’ refusal to let people who had never lived in North Carolina continue to vote in its state elections was tantamount to insurrection.
“It is no small thing to overturn the results of an election in a democracy by throwing out ballots that were legally cast consistent with all election laws in effect on the day of the election,” Earls complained. “Some would call it stealing the election, others might call it a bloodless coup, but by whatever name, no amount of smoke and mirrors makes it legitimate.”
North Carolinians — and those who have never lived there but vote there anyway — will have an opportunity to help decide the fate of Trump’s final two years in November’s midterm election.
Vying to replace RINO Sen. Thom Tillis are Michael Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, and former Gov. Roy Cooper, often touted as a “centrist” despite his radical record of pursuing far-left policies. Cooper is currently out-raising and out-polling Whatley by significant margins.
Democrats have vowed, if they regain the majority in Congress, to immediately proceed with a third impeachment attempt against Trump.
Should the House pass articles of impeachment, it would require a two-thirds supermajority, or 67 senators, in order to forcibly remove Trump from office.
Earls is also up for reelection this year at the state level, but will be unable to piggyback on Cooper’s support from foreign voters to help secure her victory.
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.
