Some well-established principles of election law have been at work in the Obama case: Voter choice, ballot clarity and efficient administration of elections, to name three. Unfortunately, none of the interested bloggers have discussed these principles.
President-elect Obama was nominated in each of the fifty states (except Michigan), Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia in the manner mandated by the election law established in each of those jurisdictions. There are general principles of election law that underlie the process in each state and territory. A nomination is established, with a few exceptions, by a nominating petition filed by the legal deadline with the chief election law in the state or territory. There are a minimum number of signatures required, and qualifications for people who sign the nominating petition.
There are a number of ways that a petition can be deficient. If a petition is deficient, the appropriate election officer can refuse to permit the candidate on the ballot. If that does not happen, the petition is subject to legal challenge by opposing candidates. There is a very short window of opportunity for such a challenge. Bases for petition challenges fall into three basic categories: (1) Insufficient number of qualified nominating signatures; (2) technical deficiencies; and (3) the nominee lacks legal or constitutional qualifications or suffers from a constitutional or legal bar to serve in the particular office.
The reasons for the short time period for petition challenges are clear: The ballots must be prepared in a timely and orderly manner. Once they are prepared, the voters and the candidates then can rely on the ballot as prepared by the election official. In that time-honored manner, the voters know what their choices are and can be confident that their choice will be honored.
In the Obama case, not one of his opponents challenged any one of his petitions in any state or territory. Election litigation is one of the hallmarks of the Democratic Party. Indeed, President-elect Obama has benefitted from outstanding lawyering both in his initial State Senate election (in which his lawyers had the incumbent disqualified) and in his U.S. Senate election (in which his lawyers were able to push the incumbent out of the race). Sentator Clinton had dozens of outstanding election lawyers on her team. Some of her political allies served as chief election officers in the states and territories. She had the knowledge. She had the opportunity. She had the ambition. And Team Clinton is certainly capable of hardball politics.
Despite all that, Senator Clinton did not challenge any of the Obama petitions based on his legal or constitutional qualifications to hold office. Why? Lack of gumption? No. Lack of knowledge? No. Lack of resources? No. Perhaps Senator Clinton did not make such a challenge because her research indicated that BHO was legally and constitutionally qualified to hold the office.
Interested observers have asked: Well, why didn’t Obama produce his vault birth certificate to be examined in a court of law? The answer is easy: Because the legal issue was never properly framed in a petition challenge.
Now that the general election has taken place, it is too late to disqualify a candidate. The electorate in the states and territories had a very long period in which to consider their choices both in the primary and in the general. No court should now reverse those elections and the choices of one hundred and twenty million people. To do so would be to invite legal and civil chaos. To do so would create a power vacuum which could be a national security threat.
Citizenship will remain as a political issue for many, and it may return as a legal issue once the future President Obama begins to file nominating petitions for his re-election. But for now, the citizenship is moot as a legal issue where the 2008 election and 2009 inauguration is concerned.
Charles W. Fairbanks is the nom de plum for one of Men For Palin’s founders. He is an experienced election lawyer. MFP will be happy to provide a link to show his bonafides as an election lawyer in response to a bona fide request for information submitted by email to fairbanks@menforpalin.com
Baloney!
Well that’s all well and good Charlie, welcome to FR and I’ll forget all about Comrade 0bama’s birth issues when you can satisfactorily explain to me why the Magic Negro has chosen to spend upwards of 1 million dollars instead of paying $10 for a valid and legitimate copy of that certificate to be released to the public.
Tell me why The Zero stands alone among all the Presidents of the United States in being the ONLY one to go to such lengths to hide and obscure his birth information from the public?
Take all the time ya like.
I have to agree. If Hillary or any other Democrat truly thought he wasn’t a legal citizen, wouldn’t they have brought it up? This “issue” is a non-starter.
/mark
The hell it is.
I’ve been having a running dispute over this issue for 2 weeks with a colleague at work and 2 days ago he showed me a picture from factcheck.org with someone holding a birth certificate with the stamp and Obama’s name and the proper signature. The only thing I spotted that was suspicious was that it was a copy with an issue date of 2007. Does anyone have any background on this particular document?
You asked for it..............
You might as well be “Manwithawebsite.com”. There are TONS of resources available to pursue obama on other fronts. The efforts being made to flush out the BC truth are well directed and appropriate.
Are you really an obamanought?
If Palin doesn’t endorse you or your views, then you do more damage then good with that site.
So, what you're saying is, once a law has been broken and you're not caught immediately, no law has been broken? You're thinking is convoluted at the very least and idiotic at most!
at the very least, his Presidency will be crippled from day 1 for having perpetrated such a gross lie, and that’s if it’s only a matter of the wrong father, marriage status of the parents, etc. that he’s hiding (I’ve never read anywhere the wedding date of the elder Obamas)
Maybe. Or maybe she's rather lay in the weeds and use it for blackmail later.
You said — “Citizenship will remain as a political issue for many, and it may return as a legal issue once the future President Obama begins to file nominating petitions for his re-election. But for now, the citizenship is moot as a legal issue where the 2008 election and 2009 inauguration is concerned.”
LOL...
That may be true for some people, but I’ll guarantee you, it’s going to be a *legal issue* for a long time to come, unless Obama shows his birth certificate which will verify his status as a natural-born citizen.
I guess that means you won’t be working on this case against Obama....
I believe it was raised a long time ago, at least during the primaries from a Hillary supporter, the Mr. Berg who we have been reading about for several weeks. So it isn’t just now being raised as an issue, and the Constituion says that the qualifications can be challenged before the electors in December, and someone from Hillary’s camp, whether directly or indirectly, did raise the issue quite a while ago.
Here's a clue for you---THE REAL ELECTION IS YET TO TAKE PLACE. That happens when the Electors (which is who were ACTUALLY voted for in November) meet to cast their ballots. It is perfectly legitimate to question Obama's citizenship status, and, as I understand it, some electors have joined in some of the lawsuits to ascertain said citizenship status.
Obama is NOT "President-Elect", and has zero official status.
Sorry Charlie - but if fraud was used to hide information legally germane for a nomination to gain an office for which Obama was not Constitutionally qualified then this is still a live and hot issue. He still, and should, be denied the Presidency if he does not qualify Constitutionally. So go MOOT yerself Charlie Tuna.
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Charlie Fairbanks
Since Oct 31, 2008
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