The ACLU and ACLU of Alaska have filed an amicus in support of Tupe Smith, a woman born in American Samoa who now lives in Whittier, Alaska charged with falsely affirming that she was a U.S. citizen when she registered to vote. But Tupe Smith is not an “alien” under the law. People, like her, born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa are the only remaining individuals recognized as “non-citizen U.S. nationals,” a unique status that falls short of “citizen” but nonetheless recognizes that American Samoa has been part of the United States for over 125 years.   All evidence indicates that Ms. Smith believed that, as a non-citizen U.S. national, she was eligible to vote in local elections when she registered to vote. In fact, local election officials encouraged her to check the box labeled "U.S. citizen" when she registered, given the fact that there was no option for "U.S. national."   Our amicus brief urges Alaska’s Court of Appeals to dismiss Tupe Smith’s indictment because of well-settled principles that election-crime statutes should be construed to avoid punishing innocent mistakes. Separately, we warn that upholding a different view of the law would make Alaska an outlier among the states.

This case involves a state constitutional challenge to South Carolina’s 2022 congressional redistricting plan, which legislators admit was drawn to entrench a 6-1 Republican majority in the state’s federal delegation. Plaintiff the League of Women Voters of South Carolina has asked the state’s Supreme Court to conclude that the congressional map is an unlawful partisan gerrymander that violates the state constitution.

Representing Western Native Voice and four sovereign tribal nations in Montana, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Montana, and Native American Rights Fund (NARF) challenged the latest in a line of Montana laws that hinder Native American participation in the state’s electoral process — SB 490, which drastically limits access to Election Day voter registration (EDR) in Montana. These laws violate a number of provisions in the Montana Constitution: the right to vote, equal protection, and due process.

In November 2022, thousands of Pennsylvania voters were denied the right to vote based on a meaningless paperwork error. They filled out their mail ballots, signed the form on the outer return envelope, and returned their ballots on time. Yet their ballots were not counted, because they either forgot to write the date on their return envelope, or they accidentally wrote the wrong date. We're fighting to make sure that every vote counts