More than a half-dozen legal challenges have been filed in federal and state courts demanding President-elect Barack Obama's decertification from ballots or seeking to halt elector meetings, claiming he has failed to prove his U.S. citizenship status.
An Obama campaign spokeswoman told WND the complaints are unfounded.
"All I can tell you is that it is just pure garbage," she said. "There have been several lawsuits, but they have been dismissed."
WND is tracking the progress of many cases across the U.S., including the following:
Ohio
David M. Neal of Turtlecreek Township, Ohio, filed suit in Warren Common Pleas Court in October to force Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to request documents from the Federal Elections Commission, the Democratic National Committee, the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama to show the presidential candidate was born in Hawaii, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
Warren County Magistrate Andrew Hasselbach denied Neal's request, saying, "The onus is upon one who challenges such public officer to demonstrate an abuse of discretion by admissible evidence – not hearsay, conclusory allegations or pure speculation."
Connecticut
Connecticut resident Cort Wrotnowski challenged the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate on Oct. 31, and asked the court to order Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz to verify Obama's citizenship before allowing the candidate to appear on the state ballot. State Supreme Court Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers threw out the case for lack of jurisdiction within a half hour of reviewing it.
"I have not seen the ruling yet," Wrotnowski told WND. "So, in reality, the case was not heard on its merits. … Currently, we are assembling information for another and better try."
Washington
As WND reported earlier, Steven Marquis of Fall City, Wash., filed suit Oct. 9 in Washington State Superior Court, calling for Secretary of State Sam Reed to determine whether Obama is a citizen before Election Day. Marquis released a statement saying the state has the authority to "prevent the wholesale disenfranchisement of voters" who might have otherwise had the opportunity to choose a qualified candidate should records show Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Marquis said Obama's Hawaii birth certificate isn't evidence that the president-elect is a natural-born citizen because it doesn't reveal the hospital where Obama was born, a doctor's name or the baby's footprint, the Associated Press reported.
Superior Court Judge John Erlick dismissed the lawsuit, claiming the secretary of state does not have authority to inquire about Obama's birth certificate. He also said Marquis failed to name Obama as a party to the lawsuit.
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New Jersey
In Leo C. Donofrio v. Nina Mitchell Wells, Secretary of State of the State of New Jersey, retired attorney and New Jersey resident Leo. C. Donofrio asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency stay on Nov. 3 prohibiting three candidates from appearing on New Jersey's ballots: Republican candidate John McCain, Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Socialist Worker's Party candidate Roger Calero.
Donofrio claimed the candidates are not "natural born citizens" as enumerated in Article 2, Section 1, of the Constitution of the United States, which states, "No person except a natural born citizen of the United States, at the time of adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President."
He wrote, Obama is not eligible for the presidency "even if it were proved he was born in Hawaii, since … Senator Obama's father was born in Kenya and therefore, having been born with split and competing loyalties, candidate Obama is not a 'natural born citizen' …"
"Republican candidate John McCain was born in Panama," the request states. "Socialist Workers Party candidate Roger Calero was born in Nicaragua. And the birthplace of Democratic candidate Barack Obama has not been verified by Respondent."
Donofrio said Panama has never been considered U.S. soil, and that McCain is merely a citizen at birth by statute, and not a "natural born citizen."
With three ineligible presidential candidates on ballots, Donofrio warned, New Jersey voters will "witness firsthand the fraud their electoral process has become."
Justice David Souter denied Donofrio's application on Nov. 6. However, his case is still pending as an emergency stay application. Donofrio is resubmitting his request for an emergency stay of the national election results and Electoral College meeting to Justice Clarence Thomas.
Pennsylvania
As WND reported earlier, prominent Pennsylvania Democrat and attorney Philip J. Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court three months ago claiming Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen.
Berg claimed that by failing to respond Obama has legally "admitted" to the lawsuit's accusations, including the charge that the Democratic candidate was born in Mombosa, Kenya.
U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick dismissed Berg's argument on Oct, 24, ruling that he lacked standing to bring the case. He said Berg's allegations were "too vague and too attenuated."
"This is a question of who has standing to uphold our Constitution," Berg told Jeff Schreiber of America's Right blog. "If I don't have standing, if you don't have standing, if your neighbor doesn't have standing to question the eligibility of an individual to be president of the United States – the commander in chief, the most powerful person in the world – then who does?"
Berg filed a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct.30, to force Obama to produce his birth certificate. Justice David Souter rejected an emergency appeal on Nov. 3, for the court to halt the tabulation of the 2008 presidential election results until Obama documented his eligibility to run for office. However, Souter set a schedule for a response from Obama, the DNC and all co-defendants on or before Dec. 1.
"I look forward to receiving Defendant Obama's response to the Writ and am hopeful the U.S. Supreme Court will review Berg v. Obama," Berg wrote in a Nov. 7 statement. "I believe Mr. Obama is not a consitutionally-qualified natural-born citizen and is ineligible to assume the office of the President of the United States."
Georgia
Rev. Tom Terry of Atlanta, Ga., appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court the day before the election to determine authenticity of Obama's original birth certificate and his qualifications to be president.
"I bear no personal ill will against Barack Obama," Terry, an independent, said in a statement. "In fact, his election solely on the basis as the first African-American president-elect is a very positive thing for our nation. However, as an American, I have very grave concerns about Mr. Obama's possible divided loyalties since he has strenuously and vigorously fought every request and every legal effort to force him to release his original birth certificate for public review and scrutiny. I think that is significant."
On Oct 24, Georgia Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter denied Terry's request for an injunction against Secretary of State Karen Handel.
"I don't think you have standing to bring this suit," he said. "I think that the attorney general has argued the law. I think he is correct. I think you are not a lawyer."
Terry is appealing his suit even though Obama didn't win Georgia because he said he wants to set an example for other states. He is asking the court to direct Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel to decertify all votes for Obama.
"Hopefully, this action will be noticed by other states and they will also take a serious look at the meaning of Georgia's Supreme Court's actions," he said. "It is apropos that the Latin motto in the Georgia Supreme Court is interpreted: 'Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.' I think if the Court rules in my favor, that motto will come alive with meaning and impact."
Hawaii
On Oct. 17, Andy Martin filed a writ of mandamus in Hawaii's Supreme Court to compel Gov. Linda Lingle to release a certified copy of Obama's vital statistics record. His request to expedite the circuit court was denied on Oct. 22.
Martin now has a pending case seeking access to Obama's original 1961 typewritten birth certificate. The circuit court hearing is set to begin Nov. 18.
The saga continues …
Several unconfirmed reports also indicate that citizens of Utah, Wyoming, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Texas, California and Virginia have also filed lawsuits or requested court orders to verify Obama's citizenship status.
As reported earlier, WND senior investigative reporter Jerome Corsi traveled both to Kenya and Hawaii to investigate issues surrounding Obama's birth.
But his discoveries only raised more questions.
The governor's office in Hawaii said he had a valid certificate but rejected requests for access and left ambiguous its origin – leaving some to wonder if the certificate on file with the Department of Health indicates a Hawaiian birth or whether it was generated after the Obama family registered a Kenyan birth in Hawaii.
The Obama campaign posted a certification of live birth, a document stating the baby was born on Aug. 4, 1961. However, according to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, there is a difference between the two documents. A certification of live birth is not an authentication of Hawaiian birth, and critics say the procedure could have allowed Obama's mother to have the baby elsewhere, return to the U.S. and obtain the document in Hawaii.
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands makes a distinction between the two:
In order to process your application, DHHL utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.
However, Andy Martin has specifically requested verification of the original 1961 type-written certificate of live birth – or, as the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands describes it, the "more complete record" of Obama's birth.
Further adding to complications, Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro, has named two different Hawaii hospitals where Obama could have been born. In a November 2004 interview with the Rainbow Newsletter, Maya told reporters her half-brother Sen. Barack Obama was born on Aug. 4, 1961, at Queens Medical Center in Honolulu; then in February 2008, Maya told reporters for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that Obama was at the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children.
But a video posted on YouTube features Obama's Kenyan grandmother Sarah claiming to have witnessed Obama's birth in Kenya.
Seeking to settle the issue, Hawaii Department of Health Director Director Chiyome Fukino released an Oct. 31 statement saying, "State law (Hawai'i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai'i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai'i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama's original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures."
The statement does not clarify whether "the record" is a certification of live birth or a Hawaiian certificate of live birth.
Before the election, WND retained a top private investigator in Hawaii with extensive FBI training and tasked him with visiting both the Queens Medical Center and the Kaliolani Medical Center to investigate claims that Obama birth certificates existed at either hospital.
However, the private investigator reported that sheriff's deputies were stationed at both hospitals to fend off press inquiries about Obama's birth certificate.
When WND asked the Obama campaign spokeswoman why Obama simply hasn't released the original 1961 certificate of live birth to make the lawsuits go away, she replied, "I have no idea. I think they released what they chose to release, and Hawaii has confirmed that he was born in Hawaii, so I don't know what else you want."
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