Sponsors (5)
The bill tightens absentee‑ballot mailing‑address verification to reduce mailed‑ballot fraud and offers a limited D.C. voting option for displaced overseas voters, at the cost of added administrative expenses and a significant risk of denying many nonmilitary overseas voters the ability to vote for their home‑state federal representatives.
States and local election administrators will send absentee ballots only to voters who provide a verifiable in‑State mailing address, reducing the risk of mailed‑ballot fraud and delivery errors.
Nonmilitary overseas voters who lack a verifiable in‑State address gain a fallback option to vote in the D.C. federal general election, preserving some ability to participate rather than being completely disenfranchised.
Nonmilitary overseas voters who cannot provide a verifiable in‑State mailing address may be denied an absentee ballot from their State, substantially limiting their ability to vote for their home‑state Members of Congress and Senators.
States and the Presidential designee will face additional administrative burdens and verification costs to confirm in‑State addresses, increasing election administration workload and expenses.
Treating displaced overseas voters as D.C. residents for a single federal election may dilute representation and does not substitute for voting for their actual home‑state Senators and House members.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Nonmilitary overseas voters must provide a verifiable in‑State mailing address before a State may send a Federal absentee ballot; failure allows a one‑election fallback to vote as a D.C. resident.
Requires most overseas (nonmilitary) voters to provide a verifiable in‑State mailing address (their own or a close relative’s) before a State or the Presidential designee may send a Federal absentee ballot. If an overseas voter does not provide that in‑State address for a regularly scheduled federal general election, the voter may instead be treated as a District of Columbia resident for that election and vote in D.C. Absent uniformed services (military) voters are explicitly excluded. The rule applies to elections in 2026 and later.
Official title: To amend the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act to require nonmilitary overseas voters to provide evidence of residence in a State as a condition of receiving an absentee ballot under such Act, and for other purposes.
Introduced August 1, 2025 by Abraham J. Hamadeh · Last progress August 1, 2025