Alaska prosecutors have decided to drop all voter misconduct cases against a group of American Samoan residents after a state appeals court overturned felony charges against one of the defendants, Tupe Smith. The decision, announced by the state’s department of law on Friday, follows a landmark ruling a week earlier that established a significant legal threshold for proving intentional wrongdoing in voter registration cases.
Court Ruling Forces Prosecutors to Rethink
A three-judge panel at the Alaska Court of Appeals determined that state law demands evidence that defendants who filled out voter registration forms incorrectly possessed a “consciousness of wrongdoing” and a deliberate intent to break the law. The panel identified serious deficiencies in how a state trooper questioned Smith and in the grand jury proceedings that led to her original indictment, ultimately reversing a lower court’s decision to keep the charges alive.
Cori Mills, Alaska’s acting attorney general, confirmed that after carefully reviewing the appellate ruling and applying the facts of the case, prosecutors concluded they could not prove the charges against Smith and the other defendants beyond a reasonable doubt. Her husband, Michael Pese, had also faced charges alongside her.
“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 in a formal statement.
Smith’s legal team welcomed the appellate decision. Whitney Brown, her solicitor, described the ruling as establishing “an important safeguard against imposing felony liability for an honest mistake”.
A Community Left Questioning Its Treatment
The case centred on a small community of Whittier, a town roughly 60 miles south-east of Anchorage, where 11 residents were charged with falsely claiming US citizenship during voter registration or at the ballot box. Neil Weare, a co-director of the Right to Democracy non-profit and part of the legal team representing Smith and Pese, said the decision to withdraw charges “raises questions about why this prosecution was even brought to begin with”.
“It’s clear that all along, they really had no evidence of any consciousness of wrongdoing on the part of Michael, Tupe or the other defendants,” Weare said.
The couple stood outside the Boney courthouse in Anchorage in January, a visible symbol of a legal battle that has consumed months of their lives. Smith was arrested after winning election to a regional school board in 2023, an event that drew national attention to the peculiar intersection of American Samoan status and Alaskan election law.
The Citizenship Dilemma at the Heart of the Case
American Samoa holds a distinctive position within the United States. It is the only US territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by birth on American soil; instead, they are classified as US nationals. Although naturalisation pathways exist, the process can be costly and bureaucratically burdensome.
American Samoans may serve in the military, obtain US passports, and vote in elections held in American Samoa. However, they cannot hold public office in the United States or participate in most US elections — a limitation that has long fuelled debate about equal rights and representation.
Smith maintained throughout the proceedings that she relied on incorrect guidance from election officials in Whittier when she identified herself as a US citizen on voter registration forms. Court papers indicate that Smith marks herself as a US national on other paperwork, but when no such option appeared on voter registration documents, city representatives advised her it was appropriate to check the citizen box instead.
Prosecutors argued that Smith had falsely and deliberately claimed citizenship, drawing attention to warnings printed on the forms she completed in 2020 and 2022 stating that non-citizens “are not eligible to vote”. The appeals court’s finding, however, undermined the basis on which that argument rested.
Why it Matters
This case exposes a fundamental tension in American electoral law: the criminalisation of administrative errors in voter registration when the individuals involved lack full citizenship status through no fault of their own. The Alaska appeals court’s insistence on proving “consciousness of wrongdoing” sets a precedent that could reshape how prosecutors across the country approach similar charges, particularly against vulnerable communities caught between the categories of citizen and national. For American Samoans — who serve their country, hold passports, yet cannot fully participate in its democratic processes — the ruling is not merely a legal victory but a reminder that the boundaries of American democracy remain contested and unevenly drawn.
