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Background 1: Hawaii, like many (most?) US states, has two kinds of birth documents.  One is a certified computer printout of their records, Hawaii calls this a “Certificate of Live Birth”.  The other is a reproduction of the hand-written form filled out in pen and ink when the baby was born, Hawaii calls this a “Birth Certificate”.

Background 2: The USA has 2 kinds of citizenship, ‘Natural Born’ citizens and ‘Naturalized’ citizens.  Only ‘Natural Born’ citizens can be President.

The whole Obama-Birth Certificate-Certification of Live Birth thing has got me thinking again.  Without a court order, the only way to get any of the birth documents from somebody born in Hawaii, like Obama, is to ask them.  Hawaii keeps them secret.

So, for a Presidential candidate, the campaign is the only source of documents.  The Presidency of the US is easily worth billions of dollars; More so for any foreign power you’d care to name.  For this much money, you can get birth documents as good or better than those produced by the State of Hawaii.

If a Hawaiian wins the election, they are more likely to be challenged (because their birth documents aren’t public).  The political parties will eventually figure out to avoid nominating Hawaiians.  This will have a chilling effect on the basic civil rights of Hawaiians.

The State of Hawaii may have inadvertantly made it exceptionally difficult for a Hawaiian to be President.  Does Hawaii have the constitutional power to do this?  Probably not.  I wonder if the US Supreme Court will force Hawaii to open it’s birth records to the public.

Would a politician or political party con their way to the Presidency?  Would some districts (like, say, Chicago) stuff the ballot boxes?  Can you spell gerrymander? Do you know of anyone so clueless that they still trust computerized voting machines?

Will people be skeptical?  If Obama wins, will he be challenged?  Do the Democrats still bring up the “Stolen” election of 2000? Will the rumors persist?

Unless the State of Hawaii coughs up the documents, this will be a sword hanging over any Obama Presidency.  The current governor of Hawaii is a Republican; Hiding any documents she has could make her a Republican hero.  But some of the state employees must be Democrats; Will they leak?  Would you trust leaked documents?  If the Republican governor of Hawaii, testifying against interest, certifies Obama’s birth documents in public, under oath, then maybe the issue will go away.

Bill Clinton was impeached.  There’s an impeachment movement against George W Bush.  If the impeachers get to work on Obama, the birth document thing will come up again.

However, this will not be an issue in the campaign, as McCain’s birth documents aren’t in such good shape either.  While the basic logic applies to both candidates (in terms of rumors, impeachment, court challanges), in Obama’s case there are documents just beyond reach, in the files of Hawaii; it’s conceivable that he’ll be proved ineligible.  In McCain’s case, there is no further discovery available; What you get is what you got.  Another difference is that in McCain’s case, the facts are agreed but the law is at issue; In Obama’s case the law is agreed but the facts are in dispute.

One more thing:  In Arizona, they have a ‘Voter ID’ law, you have to have documented ID to vote.  It’s constitutional, last I heard; the SCOTUS accepted it.  So what ID do you need to run for President?  If the rules for the electoral college vary from state to state, could the ID requirements vary too?

Details: I don’t know of any other Presidential candidate who has been asked to provide birth documents,   I am not a lawyer or a professional document analyst.  A computer image is not a real birth document.

Update: According to this Wall Street Journal article, Barack Obama sponsored the Senate resolution declaring John McCain a ‘Natural Born’ US citizen.  I just ran across it.