GOP smacked down in lawsuits seeking to block some overseas voters from casting ballots 

The GOP’s lawsuits seeking to block some overseas ballots from being cast in Michigan and North Carolina have been turned away by state judges, CNN reported Monday.

It’s a blow to former President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to obstruct the management of elections across the country.

“The RNC sued in Michigan and North Carolina to block state policies that allow for citizens abroad to cast ballots in those states if their parents (or, in Michigan, their spouse) resided in those states before leaving the country, even if the voters themselves never lived there,” reported Tierney Sneed and Marshall Cohen.

However, judges in both these states rejected the suits; Michigan Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel decried the “11th hour attempt to disenfranchise” voters, while Wake County Superior Court John Smith denied the GOP’s request to set aside North Carolina overseas ballots.

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Michigan and North Carolina have emerged as critical battleground states for both campaigns.

Mail-in voting historically began as a means to allow overseas troops to vote, and historically the GOP has championed this form of voting because these voters have heavily favored them; however, overseas ballots this year “could be a crucial bloc for Democrats as the pool of civilian expats overseas now eclipses military voters serving outside the country,” said the report.

This comes as some of the GOP’s other election litigation has fallen flat; the GOP has been smacked down multiple times over a lawsuit in Nevada alleging the state had failed to keep non-citizens off its voting rolls, based on an analysis of data that even Nevada’s former GOP secretary of state had dismissed as insufficient evidence.

It also comes as the Republican National Committee, under the direction of new pro-Trump leadership, has shifted resources away from traditional canvassing and voter outreach operations, and directed them into recruiting poll watchers and preparing litigation, with the intent to challenge any election results that go against the former president.