When Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump took the stage Sept. 10 for his televised debate against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, he repeated a well-trodden falsehood, claiming that noncitizens are voting in large numbers.
Nationally, there is no evidence that noncitizens are voting in significant numbers.
Here in Alaska, state court records since 2011 show only one confirmed instance of noncitizen voting, from a woman born in American Samoa. An official with Alaska’s U.S. Attorney’s office said prosecutors there don’t know of any recent cases in federal courts.
Despite that, some Alaska Republicans have used unfounded claims about noncitizen voting to attack the state’s two automatic voter registration programs.
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Nationally, experts warn that noncitizen voting claims are being used to sow doubt about the results of the upcoming election and are encouraging the passage of laws that could prevent legal Americans from voting.
Noncitizen voting is illegal at both the state and federal levels, and some Republican-led states have passed laws that require voters to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote, adding a layer of checks.
This year, Idaho is scheduled to vote on a constitutional amendment that requires voters to prove their citizenship.
In Arizona, if a voter fails to provide proof of citizenship, they’re not able to vote in local or state elections but can still vote in federal elections. A 2023 analysis conducted by Votebeat, a nonpartisan group, found those federal-only voters were concentrated in Democratic-leaning areas, such as college campuses.
The Arizona law has been subject to repeated court challenges, and in August, Alaska attorney general Treg Taylor joined other Republican attorneys general in signing a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Arizona law.
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The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled partially in favor of those who sought to maintain the Arizona law.
But soon afterward, Arizona DMV officials found that more than 200,000 registered voters might be disqualified from voting because the computer system they use had failed to list those voters as having shown proof of citizenship.
The largest group of affected voters is Republican, and the state Republican Party — which has been in favor of the citizenship law — joined Democrats and independents in asking the state Supreme Court to suspend it for those voters.
The court ruled Sept. 20 that those voters can still use a full ballot, effectively nullifying the law until after this year’s election.
Alaska doesn’t have a citizenship-voting law like Arizona’s, but the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the Division of Elections do check potential voters’ citizenship status, officials at each agency said by email.
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In Alaska, people who get a state driver’s license are asked if they want to register as an Alaska voter.
If the answer is yes, they have to confirm that they’re a citizen.
Paula Vrana is commissioner of the Department of Administration, which oversees the state Division of Motor Vehicles. She explained the process and referred to Alaska statutes.
“If the individual affirms they are a citizen and wish to register to vote, they are then prompted to answer additional voter registration questions,” she said by email. “These questions have been specifically designated by the Division of Elections to collect all necessary information for voter eligibility verification. Per the authority established by AS 15.07.055 and AS 28.05.045, the DMV transfers to Elections a compilation of each day’s voter registration request data.”
“Elections then conducts a thorough review of each applicant’s details. This review process ensures the data provided by the constituent meets the applicable criteria for voter registration. After this evaluation, Elections takes the necessary steps to either approve (or deny) the applicant’s voter registration or follow up if additional information is needed.”
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States are required by federal law to operate “motor voter” programs that allow people to register when they sign up for a driver’s license.
Alaska also has a second automatic program, which permits people to register or update their registration when they sign up for the Permanent Fund dividend.
Aimee Bushnell, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Revenue, said that if someone registers through that program and indicates they’re a citizen, their information is sent to the Division of Elections.
“If they marked some other status (lawful permanent resident, asylee, refugee), the applicant’s information is NOT transferred to the Division of Elections,” she said by email.
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It isn’t clear whether Alaska has audited its voter rolls with an eye toward citizenship. In Oregon, an audit
found almost 1,300 noncitizens registered to vote among that state’s 3 million registered voters.
Those registrations were due to incorrect data entry in Oregon’s motor-voter program. Nine of those noncitizens were flagged as having voted in state elections, but that figure has since been reduced to seven after further review and could be reduced further.
Carol Beecher, director of the Alaska Division of Elections, said that in Alaska, “When someone marks that they are a citizen, 18 or older on election day, and a resident, they do so on penalty of perjury. If there are non-citizens who are registered, it is because they have said they are citizens.”
The 1993 National Voter Registration Act sets the rules for most voter registration programs.
“Under the NRVA the division is not allowed to require certification beyond the statement they provide,” she said by email. “If it happens that a person inadvertently marks that they are a citizen and then finds out they are registered to vote, they need to contact the division to have their name removed from the registration list. If we hear from a different source that a voter may not actually be a citizen, we turn that over to the Department of Law.”
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Alaska court records show only one prosecution for noncitizen voting since 2011, a case filed in 2023 that’s still unresolved.
Tupe Smith was born in American Samoa, an island territory in the South Pacific. Its residents are U.S. nationals — having some of the same legal rights as other Americans — but aren’t citizens.
Smith moved to Alaska in 2017, her PFD records show, and lived in Whittier. In 2023, she decided to run for the local school board, in a state-administered election.
She ran uncontested and won a seat on the board, but her victory brought attention from the Division of Elections — which investigated her status — and state prosecutors, who filed charges against her.
Smith is being represented by a public defender, who declined comment on the case. The Alaska Department of Law similarly declined comment.
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Under Alaska law, someone has to deliberately lie about their citizenship in order to be prosecuted for voting as a noncitizen, and in a dismissal motion filed to the court, Smith’s attorney said her actions were due to simple confusion.
Smith believed that as a U.S. national, she could vote in lower-level elections but not for president, according to the filing. Frequently, governmental forms simply ask whether the signer is a citizen, Smith said in court documents, adding that there frequently isn’t space to indicate that the signer is a national.
According to the court filing, when she registered as a candidate, she verbally told the person handling her registration that she is an American national, and she expected to be identified as such.
State prosecutors tried to charge Smith with multiple counts of illegal voting, but a grand jury found no probable cause to believe that Smith committed several of the state-alleged crimes.
The dismissal motion on the remaining charges remains pending in state court.
Picture it: an 800-mile engineering marvel traversing Alaska’s rugged wilderness. An immense zinc mine powering Northwest Alaska’s economy. World-class sustainable harvests feeding global markets with seafood.
The Trans Alaska Pipeline System, Red Dog mine, and the Alaska fishing industry: These massive ventures represent high-stakes investments in infrastructure and resources that have transformed Alaska into a powerhouse of global energy, minerals, and food. Today, we call these ventures inspired, but that label masks a fundamental nuance and common misconception: there is a distinction between the risky and the reckless.
That line between bold visionary and reckless gambler is usually written in ink only after the dust settles and the checks clear. Winners are often labeled as geniuses while thousands of leaders who made similar bets but went bust are ignored. When you see any winner in the marketplace, their strategy can look like a guaranteed blueprint for success. This is survivorship bias in action, obsessing over the front-runners while ignoring the graveyard of those who made the same choices. Recklessness is a classic leadership trap, in part, because it is very easy to mistake good luck for repeatable strategy. Our brains are wired to find patterns in chaos, even when they don’t exist, and when a gamble pays off, it is easy to invent a story to explain why it worked. This explains, in part, why high-risk behavior is often rebranded as “visionary” in the business world.
Understanding the mechanics of recklessness can help a leader spot the difference between a smart move and a predictable bad one. It is the contrast between a high-wire artist using a safety net and having practiced the route, versus one who just hopes they don’t fall. The first one is making calculated moves, and the second is wishing for the best.
By U.S. Wildland Fire ServiceonSmoke from the Jade Fire (#285) to west of Ambler as shown on this FAA Weather Camera at 5 p.m. on June 23, 2026.
9:50 p.m. Update, June 23, 2026: Another load of 12 smokejumpers is en route to join the 11 already working on the Jade Fire (#285), which is burning about 3 miles west of Ambler and west of the Kopshesut Fire. Two single‑engine water scoopers — highly effective in calming the Kopshesut Fire in its early days — along with personnel aboard an air attack platform, are working the incident. The air attack platform is used to coordinate airspace and relay information between aircraft and firefighters on the ground.
The larger multi‑engine water scoopers were requested but were unable to respond due to weather at Ladd Airfield on Fort Wainwright.
At about 8:42 p.m., the fire was reported at 10 acres and was torching and active on all sides. It was burning toward the Kopshesut Fire, which stands between it and Ambler
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Use this link for an interactive map to zoom in and out for a closer look at the location of the fire: https://arcg.is/1XLmHm8
8:45 p.m., June 23, 2026: U.S. Wildland Fire Service contracted aircraft and smokejumpers are en route to Ambler after receiving reports of a new fire near the Kobuk River community.
Numberous reports from locals reporting the fire is west of the Kopeshusut Fire (#137) that escaped from the landfill June 4 and threatened the community before being contained last week.
More information will be released when it’s available.
Contact U.S. Wildland Fire Service Public Affairs Specialist Beth Ipsen at elizabeth_ipsen@ios.doi.gov or (907)388-2159 for more information.
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A new fire broke out 3 miles west of Ambler Tuesday night. The Jade Fire is also west of the Kopshesut Fire that escaped the Ambler landfill on June 4 and was contained last week. Click on the map for a PDF version.Here’s a closer look at the Jade Fire (#285) burning west of the Kopshesut Fire and about 3 miles west of Ambler. Use this link for an interactive map to zoom in and out for a closer look at the location of the fire.
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U.S. Wildland Fire Service, P.O. Box 35005 1541 Gaffney Road, Fort Wainwright, AK 99703
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Categories: Active Wildland Fire, AK Fire Info, US Wildland Fire Service
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
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The U.S. military has released new details about the massive Fightertown Recapitalization (FTR) program at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), in Anchorage, southeastern Alaska. This is a huge effort valued at approximately $7 billion that would effectively create an entirely new fighter hub to support future Air Force operations in the strategically important Arctic and Pacific regions.
The details emerged in a special notice announcing an upcoming virtual industry day, where government officials plan to brief contractors on the scope of the program and gather feedback on construction risks, industry capabilities, and acquisition strategies before moving toward a formal procurement process.
A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson flies over the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. James Richardson
While the notice, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is intended primarily as market research, it offers one of the clearest looks yet at the scale and ambition of the Fightertown recapitalization effort.
According to the notice, existing airfield facilities cannot support the program’s requirements, prompting the selection of a new site to expand the current airfield infrastructure. Rather than a collection of isolated projects, the government describes the effort as a “complete campus approach” intended to synchronize facility construction with aircraft procurement, personnel movements, and logistical requirements.
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The envisioned campus would include aircraft hangars, squadron operations facilities, corrosion control facilities, maintenance shops, and other aviation support infrastructure. Extensive airfield improvements are also planned, including new taxiways, aprons, shoulders, and specialized aircraft operating surfaces.
A picture of a so-called “elephant walk” readiness exercise at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson showing 24 of the resident 3rd Wing’s F-22s, as well as a C-17 and an E-3. U.S. Air Force
Highly likely to be included in the recapitalization efforts will be measures to help reduce vulnerability and ensure critical operations could continue in wartime. After all, in a potential fight against China or Russia, JBER would be high on the list of priority targets in the opening phases of a large-scale conflict. As we have repeatedly outlined in the past, aircraft shelters with varying degrees of hardening are suddenly very much back on the agenda in response to growing drone and missile threats.
Beyond flight-line infrastructure, the project encompasses a substantial support ecosystem. Plans call for a munitions complex, petroleum operations facilities, warehousing and supply functions, dining facilities, visitor control infrastructure, firefighting facilities, training centers, simulators, and housing for unaccompanied airmen.
The government also notes that the campus design remains flexible and could ultimately involve modifications to, or demolition of, existing facilities as planning progresses.
Rather than relying solely on traditional military construction contracting approaches, the Army Corps of Engineers says the program intends to leverage authorities provided in the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. Those authorities could allow the use of Other Transaction Authority (OTA), Progressive Design-Build (PDB), and other alternative execution methods.
The sprawling Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER), in Anchorage, southeastern Alaska, as seen in a satellite image from May of this year. Google Earth
The notice explicitly states that the government intends to capitalize on private-sector innovation while avoiding what it describes as costly and time-consuming federal contracting burdens. It also emphasizes that the execution strategy will encourage industry partners to propose novel technical and construction solutions.
The scale of the investment underscores Alaska’s growing importance as a hub for U.S. airpower. JBER already serves as one of the Air Force’s premier fighter installations and occupies a critical geographic position between North America, the Arctic, a part of the world that has only grown in strategic significance in recent years, and the Indo-Pacific theater, where strategic planning is highly focused on a potential future conflict with China.
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Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson hosts the headquarters of the 11th Air Force, the service’s top command in Alaska, and its 3rd Wing, which operates a mix of F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning Control System (AWACS) radar planes, C-17 Globemaster III airlifters, and C-12 light utility aircraft. It is also home to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 176th Wing, which has additional C-17s, as well as HC-130 Combat King rescue aircraft and HH-60 rescue helicopters.
HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter aircrew assigned to the 210th Rescue Squadron, 176th Wing, Alaska Air National Guard, hoist a simulated downed pilot during a full mission profile training exercise at Malemute Drop Zone, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, March 31, 2026. Alaska National Guard photo by Alejandro Peña
In addition, in 2023, the Air Force announced the creation of the 55th Operations Group, Detachment 1 at the base, as a detachment of the 55th Wing at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
“The new detachment will… serve as a strategic launch and recovery point for RC-135V/W Rivet Joint operations and exercises in the region,” according to the Air Force.
The move reflected increased demand for RC-135V/W Rivet Joint spy plane sorties in the Pacific, with JBER being well-positioned for these aircraft to gather intelligence on areas of interest in the northern end of the Pacific and the increasingly strategic Arctic region.
In the future, the strategic location of JBER, as well as its current status as one of the few F-22 bases, suggests that it could well eventually host the F-47 sixth-generation stealth fighter, the first of which is expected to make its first flight sometime in 2028. The F-47 could therefore well end up as the centerpiece of the Alaskan Fightertown, in keeping with the vision for the jet serving as a critical force multiplier that can bring together other crewed and uncrewed assets. With that in mind, at least some of the Fightertown Recapitalization program may be specifically tailored to the requirements of the F-47.
Importantly, JBER also serves as the focal point for the Red Flag-Alaska and Northern Edge exercises.
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The Red Flag-Alaska exercises can take place up to four times a year and mirror those flown over the Nellis Range Complex in Nevada, with some differences. Namely, the ranges in Alaska, many of which are instrumented, are enormous, and can include a more varied array of assets.
A U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry takes off during exercise Red Flag Alaska 26-1 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, April 29, 2026. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Joseph Miller
From JBER and other bases in the region, Red Flag-Alaska participants have access to the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex (JPARC). Covering an area of more than 67,000 square miles and providing 77,000 square miles of airspace above, JPARC is the “largest instrumented air, ground and electronic combat training range in the world,” according to the Air Force. It is regularly used to provide a realistic training environment for full-spectrum engagements, ranging from individual skills to large-scale joint engagements.
JPARC’s role could grow further in the coming years as the Air Force pushes large-scale exercises further and further out into the broad expanses of the Pacific. Other range complexes further down along the West Coast are seeing increasing use, as well. Even very large overland ranges, such as the sprawling Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) adjacent to Nellis Air Force Base, are increasingly constrained when attempting to replicate modern scenarios based on ever-growing adversary anti-access and aerial denial (A2/AD) bubbles.
Meanwhile, Northern Edge also occurs in and around Alaska every two years, with these large-scale events being used to test and evaluate new systems and capabilities from across the U.S. military.
One of the Air Force’s tiny force of semi-retired F-117 Nighthawk stealth jets, now used for test and evaluation purposes, at Elmendorf during Northern Edge 2023. U.S. Air Force
In the past, the Air Force has described Northern Edge as a demonstration of “the U.S. commitment to the region by building interoperability, advancing common interests and a commitment to our allies and partners in ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific,” as well as showcasing U.S. ability to defend the homeland from and throughout Alaska.
As planning advances, we will learn more about what this new Alaskan Fightertown will look like. What is already clear is that the Air Force and the Pentagon are preparing for a long-term expansion and modernization effort on a scale rarely seen at an operational fighter base.
More details could emerge during the industry day scheduled for June 30, when government officials will provide a comprehensive update on the program and solicit feedback from industry partners on how to execute one of the Air Force’s biggest military infrastructure projects.
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Update: 3:45 PM ET –
“We are deliberately investing in Pacific Air Force’s critical infrastructure by replacing and upgrading operations and maintenance facilities in addition to making repairs to existing buildings and funding mission-ready materiel, storage, and sustainment necessary for homeland defense and Agile Combat Employment operations,” a U.S. Air Force official has now told us in response to our queries for more information about the Fightertown plan. “We are also extending the runway and building a Joint Integrated Test and Training Center at JBER.”
“We are in the design stage now and will have a better idea of timelines once we receive an appropriation,” they added.
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A new fire broke out 3 miles west of Ambler Tuesday night. The Jade Fire is also west of the Kopshesut Fire that escaped the Ambler landfill on June 4 and was contained last week. Click on the map for a PDF version. burning west of the Kopshesut Fire and about 3 miles west of Ambler.
” data-large-file=”https://i1.wp.com/akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png?w=700&ssl=1″ width=”700″ height=”540″ fifu-data-src=”https://i1.wp.com/akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png?w=700&ssl=1″ alt=”A red dot marks the spot of the new fire next to a much larger fire as shown in a large pink blob.” class=”wp-image-48634″ srcset=”https://i1.wp.com/akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png?w=700&ssl=1 700w, https://akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png?w=150 150w, https://akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png?w=300 300w, https://akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png?w=768 768w, https://akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png?w=800 800w, https://akfireinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/map_gad_jadefire2_20260623.png 1056w” sizes=”(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px”/><figcaption class=)
Here’s a closer look at the Jade Fire (#285) burning west of the Kopshesut Fire and about 3 miles west of Ambler. Use this link for an interactive map to zoom in and out for a closer look at the location of the fire.
