Republican Party leaders in Honolulu bet on charismatic community activist Sailau Timoteo to win an open seat in Hawaii’s House of Representatives. Her candidacy was endorsed by the incumbent who resigned to run for governor.

But as a U.S. national from American Samoa, to be a candidate Timoteo needed to exercise her right of reclassifi- cation as a U.S. citizen. State law prohibits non-citizens from registering to vote, and eligibility to vote is a qualification for candidates.

As Hawaii’s attorney general investigates, Republican state chairwoman Shirlene Delacruz Ostrov declared Timoteo is being “ … deprived her basic democratic rights because of discriminatory, colonial-era laws that give her second-class citizenship.”

Timoteo — who is challenging her disqualification from this ballot — echoed claims of victimization and discrimination, saying “I never knew my ethnicity as an American from American Samoa gave me a second- class status.”

Her legal problems, though, aren’t about her ethnic identity, but rather arise from her signed certification of eligibility to vote, which includes attestation of U.S. citizenship.

Both the candidate and her party leader argue that her U.S. passport meant citizenship. But U.S. passports issued to American Samoans are stamped, “Bearer is a national but not citizen of the United States.”

That’s because American Samoa is an “unincorporated” territory, and Congress classifies those born there as nationals, not citizens. Still, American Samoans share U.S. nationality, are free to live in any state, where they are eligible to be reclassified as U.S. citizens with equal rights.

Unlike “Dreamers” with no path to citizenship, all Timoteo had to do was apply and claim her right to citizenship. Then her candidacy would have been fully legal.

We all hope investigators will determine Timoteo’s unlawful voter registration was an honest mistake. It didn’t help her prove that for the Republican state chairperson to inflame political emotions demanding, “All Americans should have equal rights, regardless of where in the Unites States you are from.”

This is a painful civic lesson, but the hard truth is clear. All Americans may be equal in our patriotism and civic values, but U.S. nationals and citizens in the territories do not have the same citizenship rights as U.S. citizens in the states.

National citizenship is not sufficient; it’s the combination of national and state citizenship that secures the right to vote in federal elections for representation in Congress and for president.

If the national government could grant citizenship with voting rights to nationals and citizens who are not also state citizens, that would disenfranchise and dilute voting power of state citizens. Citizens without a state don’t have equal citizenship rights. That’s why 32 territories with U.S. citizen populations — including Hawaii in the past — sought incorporation into the union leading to statehood.

It also is a truism that whether classified by Congress as “nationals” or “citizens,” Americans residing in unincorporated territories have less than equal rights in the federal political process. Because “citizenship” does not secure equal rights for people in the territories, and only matters upon relocation to a state, American Samoa has never petitioned for “citizenship” in the territory.

The U.S. Constitution does not give Congress or federal courts power simply to grant Americans in territories the same citizenship rights as Americans in the states. Amendment of the Constitution would be required to give voters outside states the same rights as state voters.

Imperialism and even racism are part of the vestigial legacy of federal territorial law and policy at the dawn of the last century. But that legacy is not the proximate cause of Timoteo’s legal dilemma in 2018.

Howard Hills, a former Hawaii resident with a history of involvement here, is author of “Citizens Without A State” and former counsel for territorial status affairs in the Executive Office of the President, National Security Council and U.S. State Department.