Alaska drops voter-misconduct cases against American Samoan residents

Prosecutors end the Whittier cases

Alaska prosecutors are dropping voter-misconduct cases against residents born in American Samoa who marked themselves as US citizens on registration forms. The decision followed a state appeals court ruling that overturned felony charges against Tupe Smith. Prosecutors said that, after applying the court's reasoning to the available evidence, they could not prove the remaining cases beyond a reasonable doubt.

Eleven people from Whittier, a small community south-east of Anchorage, had faced allegations that they falsely claimed citizenship while registering or attempting to vote. Smith's husband, Michael Pese, was also charged. The state is not declaring that every registration entry was legally correct; it is acknowledging that criminal liability required proof of knowing and intentional wrongdoing that prosecutors concluded they could not establish.

The appeals ruling raised the evidentiary threshold

The three-judge appeals panel held that Alaska law required evidence of a consciousness of wrongdoing and an intention to break the law. It also identified problems with a state trooper's questioning of Smith and with the grand-jury process that produced her indictment. Those findings undermined the felony case and forced the Department of Law to reassess whether related prosecutions could survive the same standard.

The dispute arose from a nationality category that many public forms do not explain clearly. People born in American Samoa are generally US nationals rather than citizens at birth. They may hold US passports, live and work in the United States and serve in its armed forces, yet they cannot ordinarily vote in federal or most state elections unless they become citizens. That combination can create confusion when a form offers only citizen and non-citizen choices.

Federal guidance confirms the unusual status

State Department guidance updated in January 2026 confirms that American Samoa is treated differently from incorporated parts of the United States for citizenship law. It says people born there generally receive passports endorsed for non-citizen US nationality. Adult nationals can apply for naturalization, and time lived in American Samoa can count toward the residence requirement. This guidance provides legal context but does not decide the Alaska prosecutions.

Attention now turns from criminal cases to administration. Alaska election officials may face pressure to clarify registration instructions, add a US-national option or train staff to explain the distinction consistently. The dropped cases also leave a broader policy question for Congress: whether people born in American Samoa should continue to depend on naturalization for citizenship. No change to that federal framework was announced with Alaska's decision.