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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Updated: 4 hours ago Published: 9 hours ago

A 20-year-old Hooper Bay man was arrested Saturday “in the violent murder” of two 18-year-old women who were found dead in Southwest Alaska on Wednesday, Alaska State Troopers said Sunday.

Shaquille Carawan was jailed at the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center in Bethel on charges that include first- and second-degree murder, tampering with physical evidence and furnishing alcohol to minors in a dry community, according to a summary posted by troopers online.

Troopers said Novely Rivers and Abigail Olson were found dead early Wednesday at a residence in Hooper Bay. The village, with about 1,300 residents, is located along the Bering Sea coast on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Dozens of law enforcement officers — including troopers, Village Public Safety Officers from multiple locations and officers from the Alaska Bureau of Investigation, FBI Safe Streets Task Force and other units — investigated the two deaths as homicides, troopers said.

Few additional details were released on Sunday.

The City of Hooper Bay and Native Village of Hooper Bay said Friday they were offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person or people responsible for Rivers’ and Olson’s deaths, troopers said.

On Sunday, the Alaska Bureau of Investigation thanked the community of Hooper Bay for their assistance and for providing tips and information that aided the investigation, troopers said.

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Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office spent nearly $10,000 on publicly funded Facebook advertisements meant to collect the names and email addresses of individuals who support his education agenda, according to records obtained by the Daily News.

The ads, which feature images generated by artificial intelligence, are accompanied by tag lines such as “Schools shouldn’t decide your child’s future” and “Stop Government Overreach in Schools.”

The ads began running shortly after the conclusion of a legislative session in which Dunleavy was at odds with most legislators over his education policy ideas, which included a limited-time teacher bonus plan and the creation of additional charter schools through a governor-appointed state board.

The governor’s office spent $9,640 between June and September on ads run through Dunleavy’s official Facebook page, according to receipts obtained through a public records request. Individuals who clicked on the ads were prompted to provide their full name and email address.

The ads yielded 2,256 signatures as of Sept. 30, according to information provided by the governor’s office. According to data collected by Facebook, some of the ads were seen more than 20,000 times.

“Those who sign up will be provided with updates about public education related information and proposals from the governor,” Dunleavy spokesperson Jessica Bowers said in an email last month. The goal of the ads was “to provide Alaskans with information on the governor’s proposals to improve public education in Alaska.”

Dunleavy has previously used advertising paid for by state money to bolster his agenda and collect contact information. In 2019, he spent more than $35,000 on ads promoting a larger Permanent Fund dividend and a state spending cap, among other issues.

[How a single education vote is shaping legislative races across Alaska]

State law prohibits the use of public funds for “partisan political purposes.” An ethics investigator concluded in 2020 that the collection of constituent names and contact information was legal as long as it was not shared with any entity outside of state government.

Public records officer Guy Bell said that the governor’s office “has no record of emails sent to individuals who requested to receive education updates under the petition.”

The Dunleavy administration also sought petition signatures at this year’s Alaska State Fair in support of “education reform,” but state employees manning the booth provided only limited details on the reforms sought by Dunleavy.

One ad that ran in June showed four old men wearing suits and smoking cigars, along with the phrase “They don’t want you to have parental rights.” Another ad that appeared that month stated that “education associations are doing everything in their power to prevent any progress outside of neighborhood schools and are limiting alternative public school models.” That ad was accompanied by the question: “Does Gov. Dunleavy hate kids?”

A July ad asked viewers to “sign to show your support for school choice in Alaska.” Ads in June criticized “education associations” for not supporting Dunleavy’s education policy proposals.

Dunleavy has repeatedly criticized the National Education Association of Alaska, a union representing most school teachers in the state, which has consistently advocated for increasing funding for Alaska schools.

NEA-Alaska President Tom Klaameyer called the ads “an ominous attempt to further divide Alaskans and undermine our public education system” and said the Dunleavy administration was “spending public funds on extreme partisan priorities.”

The ads began running several months after Dunleavy vetoed a broadly supported bipartisan education bill that would have permanently increased the state’s school funding formula for the first time in several years. Dunleavy said he vetoed the bill because it did not include provisions he had proposed, which would have established a three-year teacher bonus plan and created a new way for a governor-appointed board to establish charter schools.

Dunleavy, a former school teacher, has repeatedly called for an increase in the number of charter schools in Alaska. Under current state law, only locally elected school boards can establish charter schools, which are publicly funded. Dunleavy sought to have the state board of education, whose members he appoints, create additional charter schools.

The Mat-Su region has the largest number of charter schools in the state, at eight. There are seven charter schools in Anchorage, five in Fairbanks, four in the Kenai Peninsula, two in Ketchikan and one each in four other districts. The vast majority of districts in Alaska have no charter schools.

Dunleavy has remained largely opaque on his future education policy proposals after failing to gain legislators’ support for his policy goals earlier this year.

Asked last month about the governor’s education policy priorities, Dunleavy spokesperson Bowers said Dunleavy “supports policies that improve student achievement” and that he intends to consider “how we can fund education, increase the number of educational options that support the needs of parents, students, and families, better support teachers and direct instruction, and improve outcomes for all public-school students.”

Just under $2,000 of the spending for the Facebook campaign was allocated to ads targeting specific regions of the state. Half of that was spent on ads targeting residents of the Mat-Su region, a largely conservative area.

Dunleavy spent $500 each on ads targeting residents of the Kenai Peninsula and Fairbanks. The remainder of the funds were spent on campaigns classified as “broad,” “parents,” and “teachers,” according to the receipts.

When Dunleavy used state-funded ads to bolster his agenda and collect contact information in 2019, the advertising campaign triggered an ethics investigation that found that while the campaign was dubbed a petition, its goal was to gather the names and contact information of Alaskans.

Most of the ads investigated in 2019 were found to abide by state law. However, Dunleavy did agree in 2020 to pay $2,800 to settle an ethics complaint that centered on some of the ads, which referenced lawmakers who were running for reelection while the ads were running.

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