Alaska Drops Voter Cases Tied to American Samoan Citizenship Box

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska prosecutors are dismissing voter misconduct cases against several residents born in American Samoa after a state appeals court overturned felony charges against a woman who mistakenly indicated she was a U.S. citizen.

The Alaska Department of Law announced the move Friday, one week after a three-judge Court of Appeals panel ruled that state law requires prosecutors to show defendants knowingly acted wrongly and intended to violate the law when they incorrectly completed voter registration forms.

The appeals panel identified problems with both a state trooper’s interview of Tupe Smith, whose case was dismissed, and the grand jury proceedings that resulted in her indictment. The court reversed a lower court ruling that had allowed the charges to proceed.

Acting Alaska Attorney General Cori Mills said prosecutors reviewed the ruling and the underlying facts and determined they could not prove the cases against Smith and the others beyond a reasonable doubt. Smith’s husband, Michael Pese, also had faced charges.

“We respect the role of the courts in interpreting Alaska law and will faithfully execute our duty to apply the law and carefully evaluate our prosecutorial decisions,” Mills said.

Smith’s attorney, Whitney Brown, praised the Court of Appeals decision last week, calling it “an important safeguard against imposing felony liability for an honest mistake.”

The court “made clear that Alaska law requires more than simply showing that a statement was false — the State must prove a person acted with a consciousness of wrongdoing,” Brown said. “That distinction makes a world of difference to Ms. Smith and helps ensure that Alaska’s voter-misconduct statute is applied as the legislature intended going forward.”

Altogether, 11 people from the small community of Whittier, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Anchorage, were charged with falsely claiming U.S. citizenship while registering to vote or attempting to cast a ballot. Messages seeking comment were left with their attorneys.

American Samoa is the only U.S. territory where people born on American soil are not automatically granted U.S. citizenship. Instead, they are classified as U.S. nationals. Although routes to citizenship, including naturalization, are available, the process can be costly and burdensome.

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American Samoans may serve in the U.S. military, receive U.S. passports and vote in American Samoa’s elections. However, they cannot hold public office in the United States or vote in most U.S. elections.

Smith was arrested after winning election to a regional school board in 2023. She has said she relied on erroneous information from election officials in Whittier when she identified herself as a U.S. citizen on voter registration forms.

Smith said she marks herself as a U.S. national on paperwork. But when there was no such option on voter registration forms, she was told by city representatives that it was appropriate to mark herself as a citizen, according to court papers.

Prosecutors contended that Smith falsely and deliberately claimed citizenship, pointing to warnings on voter registration forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022 that noncitizens “are not eligible to vote.”

The Court of Appeals panel said in its ruling that toward the end of a police interview, a state trooper asked Smith “a long compound question that implied that Smith actually knew she was not eligible to vote” but wanted to be involved in the school board.

When Smith, whose native language is not English, did not respond right away, another state trooper clarified, “He’s asking you,” and the first trooper again presented his question, which the panel describe as “a lengthy and complex statement containing four individual questions.”

Smith answered “Yes,” the panel said, leading to her arrest and indictment on two counts of felony voter misconduct.