Hawaiian elections clerk has eligibility 'solution'

The former Honolulu elections clerk who maintains President Obama was not born in Hawaii and has no birth certificate from any hospital in the Aloha State is promoting a simple way to resolve the uproar over eligibility, at least for the future.

Tim Adams, 45, senior elections clerk for the city and county of Honolulu in the 2008 campaign, says all candidates for all offices should be required to prove their identity and eligibility before they can even run.

"The easiest way would be to pass legislation saying everyone has to verify their identity when they're running for office," Adams told WND in an exclusive interview last week. "I do think requiring everyone to certify their identity would probably solve the entire controversy."

Adams stresses the requirement should be for all political contests, from the presidency down to local races, to make sure officeholder-wannabes are who they say they are, and live in the proper district, for instance.

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Regarding Obama's case specifically, he said, "I'd like to see it resolved finally."

"It's quite strange because when the next cycle comes, will they require that he show the birth certificate, or will he not get on the ballot in those states?" he wondered.

Adams, a Hillary Clinton supporter who now teaches English at Western Kentucky University while he works on his master's degree, burst onto the scene last week in a WND story in which he asserted that Obama was definitely not born in Hawaii as the White House claims and that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Obama does not even exist there.

Tim Adams, the former senior elections clerk for Honolulu, says President Obama was "definitely" not born in Hawaii, and a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Obama does not exist in the state.

"There is no birth certificate," he said. "It's like an open secret. There isn't one. Everyone in the government there knows this."

"I had direct access to the Social Security database, the national crime
computer, state driver's license information, international passport
information, basically just about anything you can imagine to get someone's
identity," Adams explained. "I could look up what bank your home mortgage was
in. I was informed by my boss that we did not have a birth record [for Obama]."

He stressed, "In my professional opinion, [Obama] definitely was not born in Hawaii. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he was not born in Hawaii because there is no legal record of him being born there. If someone called and asked about it, I could not tell them that person was born in the state."

At the request of his university, Adams is now declining any further comment on the matter.

WND confirmed with Hawaiian officials that Adams was indeed working in their election offices during the last presidential election.

"His title was senior elections clerk in 2008," said Glen Takahashi, elections administrator for the city and county of Honolulu.

Adams oversaw a group of 50 to 60 employees and was responsible for verifying the identity of voters, especially absentee voters.

WND's original report about Adams' claims has already been made into a YouTube video, getting nearly 200,000 hits:

Some states have recently considered passing verification laws, but there has been little, if any, success.

As WND reported, a bill in Arizona that would require candidates for president to document their constitutional eligibility needs only an affirmative vote from the state Senate to advance to the governor, but its sponsor said she's concerned GOP leadership will end up protecting Obama's secrets.

Arizona state Sen. Robert Burns

State Rep. Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley, said her bill was approved by the House but was being "held" by Senate President Robert Burns, a fellow Republican.

She explained Burns told her that in light of the controversy over the state's immigration law – targeted by pro-amnesty immigrants and open-border activists – "he didn't want to take on another one."

The text of the Arizona bill is available online.

Public ridicule has targeted the state for even considering a law that would require presidential candidates to document their eligibility, even though several other states also have adopted a similarly questioning stance.

The Arizona Republic quoted Democrats who said "presidential candidates already have to prove their citizenship," and it added, editorially, "Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who lives in the real world, not on conspiracy island, points out that it could be unconstitutional for a state to impose its own requirements on federal office."

The newspaper called the plan "worse than a foolish waste of time."

"It suggests Arizona is a place where any crackpot whim can be enshrined in law."

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WND has reported no controlling legal authority ever directly addressed the question of whether Obama met the U.S. Constitution's requirements to be president. The Constitution requires that the president be 35 years of age, a resident for at least 14 years and a "natural born citizen."

To date, President Obama has still not provided simple, incontrovertible proof of his
exact birthplace. That information would be included on his long-form,
hospital-generated birth certificate, which Obama has steadfastly refused to
release amid a flurry of conflicting reports.

He has only proffered on the Internet a "Certification of Live Birth" to assert he was born
in Hawaii, but that document was available to children not born in Hawaii at the time of Obama's birth. Many people remain unaware a child could be born somewhere else and still receive a Hawaii certification. State
law specifically allows "an adult or the legal parents of a minor child" to
apply to the health department and, upon unspecified proof, be given the birth
document.

This short-form Certification of Live Birth image, which is not the same as a long-form, hospital-generated Certificate of Live Birth, was released by the Obama campaign June 2008.

"Anyone can get that [Certification of Live Birth]," said Adams. "They are normally given if you give
birth at home or while traveling overseas. We have a lot of Asian population [in
Hawaii]. It's quite common for people to come back and get that."

Besides his actual birth documentation, documentation that remains concealed for Obama includes kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

Georgia state Rep. Mark Hatfield

"At some point, I think, you have to do the best job for the greatest number of people," Burges said, echoing the feelings of Georgia state Rep. Mark Hatfield, who just days earlier introduced legislation modeled after Arizona's plan.

Both bills require documentation regarding a candidate's "natural born" status.

Hatfield told WND his plan calls for a candidate to submit an affidavit regarding status, citizenship and age, and "append a document proving the natural-born-citizen status."

The text of Hatfield's proposal also is found online.

The Arizona plan calls for political parties to "submit an affidavit of the presidential candidate in which the presidential candidate states the candidate's citizenship and age and shall append to the affidavit documents that prove that the candidate is a natural born citizen. …"

Both documents provide that absent proof, the candidate's name should not be on the ballot in that state.

Hatfield said it's really the responsibility of members of Congress to make sure a foreign-born individual or dual citizen isn't installed in the White House.

But he said without the leadership in Washington necessary to do that, it is up to states to tackle the issue. Arizona's plan is closest to adoption, awaiting only approval from the state Senate and a governor's signature.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Oklahoma also has pending in a legislative committee a referendum that could be put before voters.

The organization says during 2009, various plans to require documentation from presidential candidates were considered in Maine, Oklahoma, Missouri and Montana but were not adopted.

But that track record is not at all unusual for controversial issues such as a requirement for documentation for a presidential candidate's eligibility.

NCSL records also show that other election proposals were considered that were much more vague about whether they would apply to presidential candidates or not.

Listen to an interview with Rep. Mark Hatfield:

The Constitution states: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

"The bill is basically a bill that would provide some teeth to the Article 2, Section 1 by requiring presidential candidates in the future to submit an affidavit showing their citizenship and age, and their residency, and appending to that documents that would prove citizenship, age and residency," Hatfield said.

The issue arose with the candidacy of then-Sen. Barack Obama, who has written that he was born in Hawaii of an American mother and a Kenyan national father. Lawsuits erupted over the issue before his election and have been continuing to this date. Some claim he was not born in Hawaii and others allege the founders of the U.S. excluded dual citizens from the presidency.

"No citizen of the United States should ever have any doubts about the qualifications of the individual who occupies the highest office in the land," Hatfield said on the Liddy show.

A recent CBS–New York Times poll revealed that only 58 percent of Americans even "think" that Obama was born in this country.

According to the NCSL database, a New Hampshire proposal was pending concerning "inserting the presidential qualifications contained in the U.S. Constitution."

In New York, a proposal by a freedom-of-information organization to state lawmakers would have provided "an individual seeking placement on the New York State's election ballot(s) for the office of president or vice president of the United States must present proof of eligibility, as per requirements that are stated in Article 2, section 1, paragraph 5 of the U.S. Constitution."

In South Carolina, there was discussion over a plan to prohibit the name of a candidate on a ballot "unless that person shows conclusive evidence that he is a legal citizen of the United States."

Questions also remain about the wording of various proposals. In Obama's situation, the question specifically refers to his status as a "natural born citizen" as required by the Constitution, not any status as a "citizen" or even "native born citizen."

The proposals essentially are moving the same direction as a federal measure proposed by Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla.

Posey's H.R. 1503 states:

"To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution."

The bill also provides:

"Congress finds that under … the Constitution of the United States, in order to be eligible to serve as President, an individual must be a natural born citizen of the United States who has attained the age of 35 years and has been a resident within the United States for at least 14 years."

The sponsors' goal is for the bill to become effective for the
2012 presidential election. The legislation now is pending in a House committee and has more than a dozen co-sponsors.

But whatever support Posey's plan has, it faces massive obstacles in a House and Senate dominated by Democrats, as well as a president whose own status could be impacted by its requirements.