Alaskan officials arraigned 10 people born in American Samoa with felony perjury, voter misconduct, and related charges Friday for allegedly participating in local elections, a move rights advocates said puts Virgin Islanders and other U.S. territorial residents’ citizenship in jeopardy.
The 10 accused live in Whittier, Alaska, where they were on the official voter rolls, according to court records, but Alaska only allows U.S. citizens to vote in any election — federal, state, county, or municipal. Although part of the United States, the federal government considers people born in American Samoa “U.S. nationals” but not full citizens.
Prosecutors said it didn’t matter if the 10 were registered to vote. They knew or should have known that, as non-U.S. citizens, it was wrong for them to register, vote, or run for office in Alaska, according to court records.
One of the accused, firefighter Michael Pese, allegedly filled out a Department of Motor Vehicles form in 2022 on which he indicated he knew he was a non-citizen U.S. national, according to court records. “The defendant told investigators that he had voted in state and local elections but never in a federal election,” prosecutors said in charging documents.
Authorities started investigating Pese and the others after another American Samoan, Wittier firefighter Tupe Smith, won election to a local school board, according to media reports in Alaska. Investigators looking into her case were soon tipped off that other American Samoans had voted.
“On December 20, 2023, following the recent filing of a criminal case involving alleged voter misconduct that occurred in Whittier, the Division of Elections received an anonymous complaint that alleged that ‘a large family group, many of whom were not U.S. Citizens,’ had also registered to vote and had voted in a recent election. The anonymous complainant mentioned one person by name, Mark Pese, who the complainant alleged had admitted he was not a U.S. Citizen but had nevertheless voted in the most recent municipal election. The complainant requested that the Division of Elections look into this alleged legal voting,” prosecutors said in court records.
Like many states, DMV and other government forms are designed to automatically enroll residents as voters. Receiving notices to vote, Pese and others made good-faith assumptions they were allowed to participate, said attorneys from the Washington D.C.-based voting rights advocacy group Right to Democracy.
Neil Weare, Right to Democracy co-founder, said a two-tiered system for people born in the United States was a clear violation of the Constitution, which guarantees birthright citizenship. If citizenship for people born in the five U.S. territories was only granted by an act of Congress, a capricious piece of legislation could end U.S. citizenship for millions.
“The federal government’s position has been over the last decade that we’ve been working on these issues that there is no right to citizenship for people born in U.S. territories, that it’s a switch that Congress can turn on and off,” Weare said on a video call from Alaska. “It’s the federal government’s position that if Congress chooses to stop recognizing some of its citizens tomorrow, it can do so.”
While the Alaska case is important for American Samoans, it has real ramifications for Virgin Islanders as well, he said.
“In this day and age we don’t know what lies ahead in terms of issues of citizenship and immigration in the United States and without having that constitutional grounding and bulwark for birthright citizenship, really the citizenship of people born in any of the U.S. territories remains at risk,” Weare said.
Weare said it was unclear if Alaskan authorities would have to prove the defendants knowingly violated the law. He was certain, however, that prosecutors would have to prove American Samoans were not U.S. citizens — something Weare said would not be possible given that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship.
Either way, Pese said the charges have shaken his faith in what he considered his home.
“All I want is to give back to my community. I love my community,” Pese said Friday. “Now, with this, it feels like everything we give to our community, they threw it back in our face. After everything is done, I don’t know if I want to stay in Whittier. I don’t feel welcome.”
Worse, Pese said, worry about the case has adversely affected his mother’s health.
“Fear is the biggest thing impacting me and my family right now,” he said.