Americans by name, prosecuted for voting in Alaska

Unbeknownst to Smith at the time, she had no right to vote in Whittier elections, much less run for office. Though she was born in a U.S. territory, and has a U.S. passport and Social Security number, she is not a U.S. citizen. American Samoa is the only U.S. state or territory where people are born without automatic citizenship, and without the right to vote in state, federal, and most local elections anywhere outside of American Samoa.

Unlike people born in the other U.S. territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoans are classified simply as “U.S. nationals”—a sort of limbo state that acknowledges they are American by birth, but still denied the full rights and privileges of citizenship.

Even though they pay taxes, owe “allegiance” by law to the United States, and can join or be drafted into the military—American Samoans have long served in and died for the U.S. military at exceptionally high rates—non-citizen American Samoan nationals cannot register to vote, run for office, serve on juries, or hold any job requiring citizenship. Unless they can claim citizenship through a parent or grandparent, American Samoan nationals must apply for citizenship as though they were immigrants. That process can be costly, confusing, and long.

As non-citizen nationals, they exist in a formal underclass of democracy that precludes them from, for one, running for a local school board.


https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/01/14/americans-by-name-prosecuted-for-voting-in-alaska/