On behalf of the League of Women Voters of Alaska, the Alaska Black Caucus, and the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, the ACLU of Alaska, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a lawsuit against the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska and the Director of Alaska’s Division of Elections over the state’s compliance with the U.S. Department of Justice’s request for Alaska’s full, unredacted voter file. The Department of Justice demanded the complete voter record, which includes voters’ sensitive personal data, such as drivers’ license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

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.