A state appeals court will decide whether to dismiss felony voter misconduct charges against an Alaska resident born in American Samoa, one of numerous cases that has put a spotlight on the complex citizenship status of people born in the U.S. territory.

The Alaska Court of Appeals heard arguments Thursday in the case against Tupe Smith, who was arrested after winning election to a regional school board in 2023. Smith has said she relied on erroneous information from local election officials in the community of Whittier when she identified herself as a U.S. citizen on voter registration forms.

American Samoa is the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by being born on American soil and instead are considered U.S. nationals. Paths to citizenship exist, such as naturalization, though that process can be expensive and cumbersome.

American Samoans can serve in the military, obtain U.S. passports and vote in elections in American Samoa, but they cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections.

Smith’s attorneys have asked the appeals court to reverse a lower court’s decision that let stand the indictment brought against her. Smith’s supporters say she made an innocent mistake that does not merit charges, but the state has argued that Smith falsely and deliberately claimed citizenship.

State prosecutors separately have brought charges against 10 other people from American Samoa in Whittier, including Smith’s husband, Michael Pese.

Thursday’s arguments centered on the meaning of the word intentionally.

Smith “and others like her who get caught up in Alaska’s confusing election administration system and do not have any intent to mislead or deceive should not face felony voter misconduct charges,” one of her attorneys, Whitney Brown, told the court.

But Kayla Doyle, an assistant attorney general, said that as part of ensuring election integrity, it’s important that oaths being relied upon are accurate.

About 25 people gathered on a snowy street outside the Anchorage courthouse before Thursday’s hearing to support Smith. Some carried signs that read, ”We support Samoans.”

State Sen. Forrest Dunbar, a Democrat who attended the rally, said the Alaska Department of Law has limited resources.

“We should be going after people who are genuine criminals, who are violent criminals, or at least have the intent to deceive,” he said.

In a court filing in 2024, one of Smith’s previous attorneys said that when Smith answered questions from the Alaska state trooper who arrested her, she said she was aware that she could not vote in presidential elections but was “unaware of any other restrictions on her ability to vote.”

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 U.S. citizen, according to the filing.

Smith “exercised what she believed was her right to vote in a local election. She did so without any intent to mislead or deceive anyone,” her current attorneys said in a filing in September. “Her belief that U.S. nationals may vote in local elections, which was supported by advice from City of Whittier election officials, was simply mistaken.”

The state has said Smith falsely and deliberately claimed citizenship. Prosecutors pointed to the language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022, which explicitly said that if the applicant was not at least 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, “do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.”

The counts Smith was indicted on “did not have anything to do with her belief in her ability to vote in certain elections; rather they concerned the straightforward question of whether or not Smith intentionally and falsely swore she was a United States citizen,” Doyle said in a court filing last year.

One of Smith’s attorneys, Neil Weare, co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, has said the appeals court could dismiss the case or send it back to the lower court “to consider whether the state can meet the standard it has set forth for voter misconduct.” The state also could decide to file other charges if the case is dismissed, he said.

The court did not give a timeline for when it would issue a ruling.

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Bohrer reported from Juneau.

Alaska Native communities secured a victory in their fight to maintain federal subsistence fishing protections after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear Alaska’s appeal, leaving in place a lower-court ruling that preserves decades of precedent.

 The court declined to review Alaska v. U.S., which concerned the state’s authority to issue fishing openings that would conflict with existing federal subsistence rules, according to a Native American Rights Fund news release. By declining review, the high court allowed a Ninth Circuit decision to stand. As the state continues recovering from plummeting salmon populations, a federally-enforced priority for rural — primarily Alaska Natives — communities has limited the state’s ability to open fishing to others. 

The Supreme Court’s refusal effectively ends decades of legal battles sometimes referred to as the “Katie John” cases after the Ahtna Athabascan elder who first challenged Alaska’s subsistence authority in 1985. John’s lawsuit, brought after the state denied her request to open fishing in her community, centered on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act and its guarantee to prioritize rural communities relying on subsistence fishing over others. 

John’s early 1990s victories, culminating in a 1995 ruling, established a precedent that handed control over that subsistence priority to the federal government due to its reserved water rights. That precedent was then reaffirmed in later cases in 2001 and 2014.The state’s most recent appeal sought to overturn those rulings and return control to Alaska, which argued that subsistence fishing should be open to anyone, not just rural communities. 

“NARF filed Katie John’s first case in December 1985 and for 40 years has worked to protect the subsistence rights that sustain Alaska Native communities and cultures,” NARF Senior Staff Attorney Erin Dougherty Lynch said in a statement. “Today’s decision closes the door on decades of litigation aimed at eroding those rights.”

The conflict that led to this week’s decision began after years of declining salmon returns on the Kuskokwim River. According to court filings, managers restricted gillnet openings to rural residents during conservation periods to protect the remaining runs. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued overlapping emergency orders opening the same waters to all state residents, creating two sets of rules on the river at the same time.

The dispute began in 2021 when the state issued orders to open fishing that contradicted federal fisheries managers’ decision to keep it closed during a salmon shortage.

Federal agencies and tribal organizations challenged the state’s actions, arguing that the river segments in question fall within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge and are therefore subject to federal subsistence management. Alaska Native groups, including the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Association of Village Council Presidents, sided with the federal government.

A federal district judge agreed and issued an injunction preventing the state from issuing conflicting openings. The Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling in 2025 and rejected Alaska’s broader challenge to the federal subsistence framework, according to Courthouse News Service.

The appellate panel’s decision relied on the earlier Katie John rulings, which recognized federal authority over certain navigable waters connected to federal lands. Because the Supreme Court declined review, that Ninth Circuit ruling — and federal subsistence priority under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act — remains in force.