Voting Laws for Former Hawaiians Who Move to Territories Upheld

Residents of Hawaii who move to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands can continue to cast absentee votes in the state without running afoul of the US Constitution, the Ninth Circuit said Friday.

Although Hawaiian residents who move to other US territories don’t allow those voting rights, the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and Hawaii’s Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act don’t violate the equal protection clause, according to the opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith Jr.

Vicente Topasna Borja, who moved from Hawaii to Guam, argued that the overseas voting scheme should be subjected to ...