By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 12, 2026 — The State of Alaska has dropped its remaining voter misconduct cases against nine American Samoan residents of Whittier, after the Alaska Court of Appeals ruled that prosecutors must prove more than an inaccurate statement on a voter registration form.
Acting Attorney General Cori Mills said Friday that prosecutors reviewed the court’s Sept. 4 decision in Tupe Smith v. State of Alaska and determined they could not prove the remaining cases beyond a reasonable doubt under the legal standard established by the court.
Smith was born in American Samoa and lives in Whittier with her family. People born in American Samoa are generally US nationals, but not automatically US citizens. They may live and work in the United States and hold US passports, but they are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections unless they become citizens.
That was at the center of the prosecutions. In 2023, the Alaska Division of Elections discovered that Smith had identified herself as a US national on her Permanent Fund dividend application but had then checked a box identifying herself as a US citizen on voter registration documents. The voter registration form did not include a separate box for US nationals.
Two Alaska State Troopers interviewed Smith in November 2023. She acknowledged that she was a US national rather than a citizen but said Whittier election officials had instructed her to check the citizenship box because the form did not provide an option for nationals.
Smith told investigators that she knew US nationals could not vote for president but did not understand that they were also barred from voting in state and local elections. She said she would not have voted had she known she was ineligible.
Smith was arrested and charged with multiple counts of first-degree voter misconduct, a class C felony. The grand jury indicted her on two counts involving the voter registration forms but declined to indict her on other counts involving her declaration of candidacy and absentee voting documents.
The 20-page Court of Appeals opinion concluded that the grand jury received an incorrect explanation of what prosecutors had to prove.
Alaska law makes it first-degree voter misconduct to “intentionally” make a false affidavit, swear falsely or falsely affirm something under an oath required by state election law.
The state argued that “intentionally” essentially meant that Smith knew the statement she made was factually false. But the three-judge appeals panel ruled that the statute requires prosecutors to prove that a defendant acted with a “consciousness of wrongdoing” when deliberately making the false statement.
In other words, checking an incorrect box is not by itself enough for a felony conviction. Prosecutors must show that the person understood that the statement was wrongful when it was made.
The court also found serious problems with how Smith’s interview was presented to the grand jury.
Rather than playing the recorded interview, a trooper summarized it from memory and testified that Smith had acknowledged she probably knew she should not have voted. The appeals court said that characterization did not accurately reflect Smith’s interview.
The disputed statement came after a trooper asked Smith, whose native language is not English, a lengthy question containing four separate questions. Smith answered “yes.” The appeals court found that the response could not fairly be treated as a clear admission that she knew she was violating the law.
The court noted that grand jurors themselves questioned whether Smith had made an honest mistake. One asked whether the conduct would still constitute a felony if she had checked the box “by accident.”
The panel concluded that the combination of the incorrect legal instruction and the misleading summary of Smith’s interview required dismissal of the indictment. The decision reversed Superior Court Judge Peter Ramgren, who had previously allowed the prosecution to continue.
The ruling does not make US nationals eligible to vote in Alaska and does not prevent the state from prosecuting deliberate voter fraud. It does, however, establish that prosecutors must prove criminal intent — not simply that a registration document contained false information.
Smith’s case was Court of Appeals No. A-14529, Opinion No. 2832. The ruling can also be found through the Alaska appellate records portal by searching for A14529 or Tupe Smith.
After applying that ruling to the other Whittier cases, the Department of Law concluded that the available evidence was insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the remaining defendants knew they were doing something wrong when they identified themselves as citizens.
The decision brings an end to prosecutions that began with 11 American Samoan residents and drew attention to both the unusual legal status of American Samoans and the failure of Alaska’s voter registration forms to provide a clear distinction between US citizens and US nationals.
