How The GOP Treats Innocent Mistakes as Fraud To Promote a Noncitizen Voting Panic [View all]

Tupe Smith didn’t even want to vote in the Whittier school board election, let alone run in it.

Smith moved to the remote Alaskan village in 2017 to be close to her husband’s extended family. Accessible only by single-lane, 2.5 mile tunnel or boat, Whittier is known as the “town under one roof,” where nearly all of the 270 residents live in a single 14-story tower, many rarely leaving for weeks on end during the long, dark winters that dump more than 20 feet of snow every year.

It’s a surprising place to find so many American Samoans like Smith — she’s one of roughly 70 who hail from the tropical island more than 5,000 miles away.

But Smith made a home in frigid Whittier, volunteering at the lone school before her kids were even born. She was so beloved by her neighbors in this tightest of communities that they practically begged her to join the school board. After all, with nearly half of kids in school being Samoan, it made sense to have at least one on the board. Reluctantly, she agreed, and in 2023 she won her seat with 96 percent of the ballots cast, including her own.



https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/how-the-gop-treats-innocent-mistakes-as-fraud-to-promote-a-noncitizen-voting-panic/