Secretaries of State do not qualify under Hawaii Revised Statute 338-18 (b) for receiving a copy of a birth certificate. That is why in 2012 both the Arizona and Kansas Secretaries of State requested and received “Certified Letters of Verification in a Lieu of Certificate” (under the provisions of Hawaii Revised Statute 338-14.3) from the Hawai’i state Registrar which those two Republican Secretaries of State used to approve Obama for their states’ ballots.
http://law.justia.com/codes/hawaii/2011/division1/title19/chapter338/338-14-3/
If any Secretary of State had wanted to receive or inspect an actual copy of the birth certificate, they would have needed to get a court order for it from “a judge of a court of competent jurisdiction” in accordance with Hawaii Revised Statute 338-18(b) (point 9).
In 2012 there were 50 different eligibility challenges to Obama’s credentials heard in 22 states by courts and state election boards. No court or state election board ruled him to be ineligible.
There is no state that has a law requiring a birth certificate in order to be on the ballot. Arizona’s legislature passed such a statute but Governor Brewer vetoed it.
Most states do not have statutes requiring Chief Elections Officials such as Secretaries of State to verify eligibility. In many states if a political party certifies a candidate as eligible, they are automatically placed on the ballot and then it is up to the opposing candidates to challenge an opponent’s credentials. Only one opposing candidate ever challenged Obama’s credentials, American Independent Party candidate Allan Keyes. He lost his challenge all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in Keyes v. Bowen
Will Milton Wolf please pick up the screaming red courtesy phone?
Exactly why a Mandamus from the Alabama supreme court must *not* refer the SOS back to the court where the appeal initiated from, if it is to have teeth. Its possible the court will punt because of this.
That way if subpoenas are issued by the court, they are issued by a higher court, i.e. supreme court of Alabama, so that the usual suspects in Hawaii cannot deflect the matter with their usual hocus pocus bull.
The lower court would just perform the usual confidence trickery of bogus precedent and miss reading law, then probably go off and ask for another non-verifying verification from a shadow of a Hawaii state DOH Registrar.