The state of Arizona considered Hawaii’s answer to be adequate. That suggests courts would as well. You can postulate fraud, but you have no evidence that Hawaii deliberately misled Arizona.
Ҥ338-14.3 Verification in lieu of a certified copy. (a) Subject to the requirements of section 338-18, the department of health, upon request, shall furnish to any applicant, in lieu of the issuance of a certified copy, a verification of the existence of a certificate and any other information that the applicant provides to be verified relating to the vital event that pertains to the certificate.
(b) A verification shall be considered for all purposes certification that the vital event did occur and that the facts of the event are as stated by the applicant.
(c) Verification may be made in written, electronic, or other form approved by the director of health.”
Let me repeat:
“A verification shall be considered for all purposes certification that the vital event did occur and that the facts of the event are as stated by the applicant.”
Before receiving anything from HI, Bennett said Obama’s name would go on the ballot as long as HI sent ANYTHING. And he was true to his word. HI sent a verification that they have no valid BC for Obama, and Bennett put Obama’s name on the ballot as he had promised.
If courts would have considered it good enough, then why didn’t MDEC request Obama’s actual birth facts to be verified so they could submit to the court the same response that Bennett got? The validity of the BC and the truth of the claims made on it were central to the MDEC court case, which is what they used as the reason for making their request. But then they deliberately failed to ask about any birth facts or the validity of the BC. What they got was totally irrelevant to the central question, as defined by them. You think those guys are just stupid, or do you suppose they knew that a judge would HAVE to rule that a response like Bennett got would actually damage their case?
If they have a record they have to verify the existence of a record. They also have to verify any submitted facts that they can certify as having actually happened (that is, those facts are claimed on a legally valid BC). Let’s look at how that would play out.
Suppose I sent in a long-form to HI that said Mary Poppins, female, was born in Honolulu, on Big Island, on Jan. 1, 2013, to Little Bo Peep and Osama Bin Laden. I signed as the informant but there wasn’t any birth weight for the child and there was no doctor’s signature saying that mother and child had been examined. So the record is non-valid. It exists but it is non-valid.
Then suppose that you requested a verification that Mary Poppins, female, was born in Honolulu, on Big Island, on Jan. 1, 2012, to Little Bo Peep and Osama Bin Laden.
Onaka looks at the request application to see which BC is being asked about and sees that he’s got one that claims the same things as are listed in the request application. So he has to verify the existence of the BC.
If he issues a verification saying that they have a birth record for Mary Poppins, does that mean he is verifying all the other stuff as true?
If he responded by saying they don’t have a BC for Mary Poppins when they actually do (and the law says nothing about whether the record is valid or not) would that fulfill the requirement of the statute, that they verify the existence of the birth record if it exists?