Thanks for the response. The relevant phrase in your link is this:
The verification process will not, however, disclose information about the vital event contained within the certificate that is unknown to and not provided by the applicant in the request.
So you can't just say, "Tell me what's in all the fields." You have to specify the information that you have in a given field and ask if it's correct.
Even though we know what is supposed to be in all the fields according to the PDF released to the public, you still have to provide the specific answer yo want verified for each item on the form. You don't find this in the specific statute about verification, but I suspect it comes from other laws about releasing information to third parties.
This is supposed to be a copy of the first page of the request, the form Bennett filled out:
I couldn't read it at first, but I think I can see what you're saying. It looks like Onaka read the items on the form as identifiers specifying which document he was supposed to check, not as items to be checked. That could be the usual way such forms are treated. Of course we know who's birth certificate it's supposed to be, but bureaucrats are supposed to go by the book.
Bennett thought he was going to get a specific verification of all the items on the form and the items on the sheet. He didn't get that. Whether this was some special dodge on Onaka's part or whether it was standard operation procedure for Hawaii DOH is something you could find out if you had other copies of requests for verification and their answers. Barring that, I don't think you can assume that it's a clever dodge.
Sorry, but he didn't do it at all, so there's no way to "do it again."
Once for the short form. Once for the long form. Once in this letter. Maybe Onaka was lying all those times, but it looks to me like he attested to the validity of the information 3 times.
You've basically admitted this really was an obvious fraud, it's pretty silly to bemoan one of the obvious red flags.
I never said it was a fraud, or an obvious fraud -- or authentic. I don't know enough about documents and imaging to decide. Nothing looks obviously fraudulent to me, but what do I know? I do know a tiny bit about fountain pens and manual typewriters, and that makes me think that some of the explanations of why the PDF was fraud were obviously wrong-headed, maybe even stupid. If you subscribed to those theories, I don't mean anything personal, my point is, if it's a forgery there's nothing obvious about it, and the most obvious explanations of a forgery were flawed enough to make us really question the whole "obvious fraud" idea.
If you're referring to Dr. Fukino, my idea was that people can't simply dismiss her comment out of hand. One can't simply assume that she didn't see the document or that she didn't get a good look, or that she didn't know what she was looking at. One has to at least admit the possibility that she may have been right about her comments and that there was something fraudulent about the copy that was released. That doesn't prove that the document was forged, though. Any or all of those objections may still be true. But her comment increases the possibility that the PDF may have been a fake.
So you can't just say, "Tell me what's in all the fields." You have to specify the information that you have in a given field and ask if it's correct. I'm going to stop you here, because this is basically what Alvin T. Onaka Ph.D. appeared to be doing in the last part of the letter of verification to AZ SOS Bennett when Onaka wrote that the "information matches." But Bennett didn't even make such a request. He did request verification of the information in the standard request form and Onaka punted on that.
It looks like Onaka read the items on the form as identifiers specifying which document he was supposed to check, not as items to be checked. That could be the usual way such forms are treated.
The laws and procedures that butter quoted make it pretty clear that the registrar is supposed to verify ALL information that is specifically requested. I don't get the feeling that there is a "usual way" such forms are treated, because the state of Hawaii stalled forever with Bennett's request while they responded immediately to the MDEC.
Bennett thought he was going to get a specific verification of all the items on the form and the items on the sheet. He didn't get that. Whether this was some special dodge on Onaka's part or whether it was standard operation procedure for Hawaii DOH is something you could find out if you had other copies of requests for verification and their answers. Barring that, I don't think you can assume that it's a clever dodge.
Bennett was instructed by the state of Hawaii on how to request the information. I'm pretty sure he had a reasonable expectation that all the information he requested would be specifically verified since he was told exactly what to do. As far as a "clever dodge," I don't believe that's how I characterized Onaka's evasion of the missing verifications.
Once for the short form. Once for the long form. Once in this letter. Maybe Onaka was lying all those times, but it looks to me like he attested to the validity of the information 3 times.
He wasn't asked about the short form, at least not in terms of providing any official verification. At one point, the spokesbabe for the DOH reported that Onaka THOUGHT he could see "pieces" of an embossed seal on the jpg of the short form. That's not how a registrar attests to the validity of the information in a legally valid birth certificate. We really don't need to make excuses for him. This is clearly an insufficent verification. It's why the KS SOS felt like he needed to try to get a verification in which the registrar would confirm whether the information was "identical." Onaka PUNTED on that request too.
I never said it was a fraud, or an obvious fraud -- or authentic. I don't know enough about documents and imaging to decide. Nothing looks obviously fraudulent to me, but what do I know?
You said: "Could be, and if that's true, the matter should be examined more closely. Fukino may have known what she was talking about and might actually have seen a document different from the one that was presented (in PDF copy) to the public." By admitting there's sufficient reason to examine the document more closely and that there may be different documents, then you are admitting there are obvious signs of fraud that have been brought up. You're trying to deflect from these red flags by talking about fountain pens and manual typewriters. Sorry, but whining about that when you've acknowledged the other problems is pointless.