Republicans to press ahead in bid to block some overseas ballots

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans on Tuesday vowed to appeal court rulings rejecting their efforts to block some Americans living abroad from voting in North Carolina and Michigan, part of an aggressive legal campaign by the party ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The Republican National Committee had filed lawsuits in the two battleground states, as well as the crucial state of Pennsylvania, challenging what they call illegal overseas voting.

On Monday, judges in Michigan and North Carolina said the RNC had no grounds to challenge the states' election statutes, and found the party failed to show it would suffer irreparable harm.

In a statement announcing the appeals, an RNC spokesperson said: "We are fighting to protect every legal vote, including from military and overseas citizens, to not be canceled by ineligible votes."

As many as 1.6 million Americans living overseas, including U.S. military members and their families, are eligible to cast ballots in the seven swing states, according to the Democratic National Committee.

Locked in a tight race, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump both are courting their support. At the same time, however, Republicans have been seeking to restrict voting rules for some of them.

In Michigan, the party objected to rules that say a U.S. citizen who never lived in the United States but who has a parent, legal guardian or spouse who last lived in Michigan is eligible to vote in that state as long as the citizen has not registered or voted in another state.

Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel ruled on Monday that Michigan's language was consistent with federal and state laws, adding: "There is no ground to invalidate it."

In a ruling in North Carolina, Superior Court Judge John Smith said the election statute governing overseas voters was adopted as a bipartisan measure in 2011 and had not been challenged until now, noting that the parties had participated in elections since then "without complaint."

Some 2.9 million U.S. citizens living outside the country were eligible to vote overall in 2020, though fewer than 8% of them did, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, a government entity.

The RNC's case in Pennsylvania is still pending.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Jasper Ward and Luc Cohen; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Jonathan Oatis)

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