Citizen has “Standing” to contest the eligibility of candidates for office

ILLINOIS RESIDENT OPENS THE DOOR TO SUCCESSFULLY CHALLENGING OBAMA’S CONSTITUTIONAL QUALIFICATIONS TO HOLD OFFICE

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jul. 3, 2010) — An Illinois citizen and registered voter has filed an Objector’s Petition to some of the candidates on her 2010 ballot.  Her objection states that there is insufficient evidence that the candidates in question meet the constitutional eligibility requirements for the offices they seek.  Her petition will be presented to the State Electoral Board on Tuesday, July 6.

The details of the hearing can be found here.

Sharon Meroni is the Managing Editor of Patriot’s Heart Network. She broadcasts on Internet radio as Chalice Jackson. Patriot’s Heart Network’s main website is www.patriotsheart.us.  To follow Sharon as this action moves forward, join their TownSquare Forum. The topic on the Illinois State Board of Elections challenges is located in the Patriot’s Heart Legal Action forum. For now, you must be a member of the TownSquare to read the updates breaking news from Chalice.

Ms. Meroni gave her first exclusive interview on her petition to The Post & Email and discussed the ramifications it could have on future elections in her state and throughout the country in regard to determining candidates’ eligibility for office.

MRS. RONDEAU: Thank you so much for allowing The Post & Email  your first interview regarding the Objector’s Petition.  Has it officially been filed yet?

MS. MERONI: I do think that this is an extremely important topic to discuss and put out there, and timeliness is everything, so I appreciate your availability and dedication to get this information out to the public.  It was filed on June 28, 2010, the final date for the contest period.  I got it in just under the wire before the period ended and was the last party to file  an objection.  This objection is not filed in a court initially, but rather, at the State Board of Elections.  There, they give it a time stamp and we all come together on July 6 and schedule actual hearings for each one of the objections.  I’m not sure what to expect after the scheduling; there might be some amount of decision-making going on.  But there should be a scheduling of hearings at that point, and for me, there should be 32 hearings because I have filed objections to 32 candidates.  (Editor’s Note: The hearing schedule linked to above mistakenly lists 31 objections for Ms. Meroni.)

There’s a chance that the Board will handle it another way, but what I have outlined is the normal procedure.  It’s not something that’s going to wait 30 days; they process the objections very, very quickly.  I would anticipate that if there is a reason that I cannot proceed with verification of the constitutional eligibility of my candidates, it would then move into the court arena.

MRS. RONDEAU: When did you discover that you could even file such a motion?

MS. MERONI: That’s an excellent question.  At the end of last November, I decided to learn eligibility law in Illinois to find out how it was that there was this issue about Obama’s eligibility.  It just blew me away, so I decided I had better do the research myself, and I took everything off my plate and delved deeply into Illinois election law.  At that point, I learned how it was that no one in the state of Illinois at any level of government is ever verified to be constitutionally eligible. So then I looked deeper and learned that there are different ways in which We the People are given an opportunity to protest or to object in a “contest” situation.  They frame elections as “contests” here.  When I began my research, I also attempted a couple of court actions along the way as part of  my learning experience. My final attempt in court was to have a temporary restraining order on the State Board of Elections in Illinois to keep them from certifying the election results from the February 2010 primary.

My basis for that was that the candidates had not been verified as being constitutionally eligible.  “Constitutionally eligible” is not the same thing as “How many signatures did you get on a petition?”  Those are governed by something called “apparent conformity.”  What I am talking about when I say “constitutionally eligible” is “as mandated by the U.S. Constitution and not given over to law.”  The eligibility regarding petitions is based on law, but the Constitution sets out the parameters which the law must support.   The eligibility requirements here are citizenship and age.

I discovered that nowhere in Illinois do they test at that level.  After investigating, I found out that the only time I can contest someone’s eligibility is during the five-day objection period.  There were a couple of fatal flaws in the TRO application, which was why it was turned down; one of them was that I lacked standing, and the timing was wrong because I had not contested during the five-day period during which the candidates had to qualify to get on the ballot.

MRS. RONDEAU: So were they correct to deny your TRO application at that point?

MS. MERONI: Well, I don’t know if I would state that; I assessed my legal strategy at that point and I believe I wrote a very powerful temporary restraining order. If it wasn’t delivered in the correct manner, then I believed that the best strategy was to take all of that information and find another venue where you have a stronger chance of success.  So my decision at that point was that there were a couple of fatal flaws that would hinder the real question from being heard, and “standing” is always one of those questions or hindrances.

MRS. RONDEAU: Do you have reason to believe that any of the candidates on your ballot is not constitutionally eligible, or are you simply testing the system with this objection to see what the Election Board will do?

MS. MERONI: The fact is that I can’t assess a situation without the data to do so.  When people ask me, “Do you believe that this person is or is not eligible?” I can only honestly say, “I have no clue,” because there is no way to test it.  They don’t have to provide any documentation.  HIPAA and privacy laws prohibit us from gaining access to people’s personal health information, and birth certificates fall under that category.  I can’t go out into the public domain and look it up; I can’t get it from the candidates, because they’re not asked to provide it; and if I miss the five-day period, I lack standing to ever go forward in court to find out.  So when someone says to me, “Do you have any reason to believe…?” I can only say, “I don’t know what to believe because there is no data available to me,” and yet, this is a constitutional requirement.  So the way I look at it is: “This is my ballot; it’s my one chance to exercise my sovereign will in support of this republic, and if I don’t have a ballot that has constitutionally eligible candidates on it, then my one opportunity is corrupted.  I have that right.

I don’t care who the candidate is, quite honestly.  I don’t want to cause third-party candidates any unnecessary problems, and I say that from my heart because the way this worked out, I’m challenging the third-party candidates.  That is a process in Illinois:  the first primary is always with the established parties, and the second candidate eligibility period is when the third-party candidates get to register.

The way this all transpired, I wasn’t in a position to contest during the five-day period for the major-party candidates, and that’s why I did the TRO, which failed.  So now, it’s at this level, and whatever happens, there will be another opportunity, I believe, for us to contest this in November if it’s not resolved at this time.  And I do have standing to question the signers.

MRS. RONDEAU: Would you have liked to have filed this earlier against the major-party candidates?

MS. MERONI: Yes, because I think every time I go to the ballot place, I should have the assurance that my ballot is constitutional, so for me, the sooner, the better.

MRS. RONDEAU: Is this a law that has been on the Illinois books for a long time?  Was it in existence in 2008 when questions arose about Obama’s constitutional eligibility?

MS. MERONI: In regard to 2008, I think that people didn’t know about the law, and I think that we need to challenge this law right now because we need to find out what the rules are.  If we have to make legislative changes, then we need to get that done before 2012 so that we don’t continue with this problem.  I was actually astounded when I did this research over the winter, and I was floored to find out that not only does no one check constitutional eligibility, but no one is able to check.  The only way that we can find this out is through this five-day contest period unless somehow, it’s unveiled in the public and then there’s an uprising and then the state’s attorney might somehow file a charge later on.

And it’s not just Illinois; it’s all across the country.  When I went out on the Tea Party Express, I said to people that the eligibility issue is not about just Mr. Obama; it’s about our nation having a constitutional government.

In Illinois, we have one situation, for instance, that is very real.  Let’s just say that they bring the Gitmo prisoners to Thomson, IL, where there’s a prison.  That community has 600 members in it, and the town mayor has a great deal of control over what goes on there.  One of the things people are concerned about is if they bring the prisoners there, they’re going to have a huge population of Muslims moving in right next to the prison.  So let’s say they flood the town.  Only 50% of the people tend to vote, and now we get 300 new residents, and they elect a mayor but nobody ever challenges his eligibility when he’s a candidate.

I have to take it one more step, and I know this is a little complicated.  But the second step is that in Illinois and everywhere, we register people to vote.  When you register to vote in Illinois, one of the places you can go is the Department of Motor Vehicles.  I have testimony from an elected county clerk in Illinois who stated that if somebody goes to the Motor Vehicle Department and wants to get a state ID or a driver’s license and they’re turned down because upon examination by the person at the window, it’s determined that the ID presented is false, then that person will not permit them to get a state ID or a driver’s license, but they are required to offer to register them to vote and to permit them to register.  When that happens, you might say, “Well, surely, somebody will catch it,” but that’s not the case.  In Illinois, they do not allow the county clerks access to the nationwide database of illegals; they do not allow them any access to find out the citizenship status of people who register.

MRS. RONDEAU: So people could be bringing a fake ID which the clerk might detect, but the clerk has to give them the opportunity to register to vote even if they suspect that they’re an illegal alien?

MS. MERONI: Yes; it doesn’t matter what they suspect.  As long as they know that that ID is fake, it’s not good enough for a state ID or a driver’s license, but we don’t value our sovereign will vote enough to say that it’s not good enough to register to vote.

MRS. RONDEAU: Most people probably have no idea of this!

MS. MERONI: That’s why I’m passionate about it; this is life-changing for us because it’s how people are getting elected.  They’re changing the reality of the elections.  To bring that to a full circle, how does that impact us?  One of the qualifications for candidates is that they’re supposed to be registered to vote.  If you go back to the example of Thomson and have a flood of people coming in, they can illegally register to vote and grab the mayorship of that town in no time.

In the state of Illinois, there are five days to contest a candidate’s placement on the ballot.  The system by which one does that is not user-friendly.  If you go on the internet and look at the Illinois State Board of Elections website, you will not see a whole explanation as to how a citizen can file an objection during the five-day period.  They assume that that’s just for the involved people.  And who’s involved in election contests?  Politicians and their lawyers.  We citizens are busy and we trust it to other people.

MRS. RONDEAU: I think we have all done that, believing that elections are prepared for properly.  However, as we know from the election of 2008, they might not be.

MS. MERONI: Exactly.  And to bring back the issue of voter registration, when a candidate goes to file his papers to get on the Illinois ballot, he or she is supposed to be a registered voter.  You could go and look to see if  that’s the case, but because there’s no verification of when they registered to vote, it’s not a system that can assure that the person is constitutionally eligible.

MRS. RONDEAU: Which proves what you said before:  that an illegal alien could run for office, win and take office.

MS. MERONI: Yes, and that goes for almost any location in America.  America needs to wake up about this.  That is how we got into the crisis that we have.  It’s not just because of “natural born Citizen.”  It’s because most  people assume that when a candidate signs a statement verifying that he or she is eligible, they are.  So then they give you five days to object, and if you miss that five-day period, then you lack standing.  It’s difficult to find out this information, and often when we do find it out, it’s too late to do anything.  Therefore, getting into the game so that you can fight a particular candidate whom you suspect is not legal is very difficult. It also becomes more complicated when the information isn’t asked for or provided, and we can’t research it because of privacy laws.  So they have us all tied up in knots and rope, and they’re saying, “You can’t get out of this hold!”  The only way out is during this five-day period that I know of when you can at least begin to get an audience.

MRS. RONDEAU: So you have taken advantage of that five-day period, filed the Objection, and you have a hearing on July 6, which is next Tuesday.  What do you expect will happen?

MS. MERONI: That date will be a hearing according to Illinois State Board of Elections terminology.  The only thing that I understand will happen during that hearing is scheduling.  I have been told that all of the hearings will be held in Springfield.  So what they’ll probably do is set aside a certain number of days for this type of challenge, and they’ll come in rapid-fire.  I have 32 objections, so I’ll have to attend 32 hearings.  Some of the 32 are being challenged by other parties as well.  I was debating with an expert in election law in Illinois about this, and he and I were trying to discern how the State Board of Elections would react, and we don’t really know.  Thirty-two hearings is an administrative nightmare for them.

MRS. RONDEAU: Does that mean other people have discovered the same thing that you did from your research and have filed objections based on lack of proof of constitutional eligibility?

MS. MERONI: No, those are my contests.  The Board has a lot of other objections because other politicians would be objecting to each other during the contest period right now.  Most of those contests are about petitions and signatures, and political nastiness enters in as they go line by line through the signatures.  Illinois is well-known because that’s how Mr. Obama was elected his first two times.  His lawyers went in and attacked the signature petitions and were able to disqualify enough of the signers to destroy the candidate’s eligibility based on lack of valid petition signatures.

There’s something called “apparent conformity” in Illinois.  What happens is when an election clerk receives filing papers for a candidate to appear on the ballot, they call it “ballot positioning.”  The elections clerk looks at the first page, and if she can see that 1, 2 and 3 are completed, then the application appears in “apparent conformity” and they then qualify for ballot placement based on the time at which they submitted their petitions.  But she cannot open up that application to count the number of signatures that are there, nor can she check to see if those signatures are valid.  The only way that can be done is through someone objecting.  So what usually happens then is that political candidates will object and then they get to look inside to see the signatures.

MRS. RONDEAU: So the politicians know the way the system works, and they use it.

MS. MERONI: All the time.  This is very interesting, because in the 2008 presidential primary election, we had a situation in Illinois that was absolutely unprecedented and widely unreported.  A local citizen downloaded a petition for Alan Keyes to run as a Republican on the ballot.  She downloaded it; she got a few signatures, under 50, and submitted it.  Through “apparent conformity,” the Illinois Election Board clerk verified Mr. Keyes for ballot position for the 2008 Republican presidential primary campaign.  He wasn’t elected. However, Mr. Keyes never signed the statement of candidacy to ask to be on the ballot.  So by not signing that, he never affirmed that he was constitutionally eligible.

MRS. RONDEAU: Is it possible that he might not even have known about it?

MS. MERONI: Yes, and as a result, they broke a long-standing standard of apparent conformity, which was that the statement of candidacy had to be present.  One of the funny things about election law is that it’s all done at the local level, so first you have your state election board and then you have your county election board.  So across the state right now, the county election boards, which are all run by the elected county clerks, are saying, “What is my standard for apparent conformity?”  Because there’s no uniform rule throughout the state such that everybody has to make sure that they actually have the signatures or that they have their statement of candidacy signed or that they are eligible; there’s no check-and-balance.  Part of that is because we don’t want election clerks opening up and deciding if a candidate can run because they are short one signature.  That’s where the theory behind that came from.  But in Illinois, the application of it has come down to the fact that someone who doesn’t even know he’s on the ballot could be on the ballot unless someone contests it during that five-day period.  And we know that people don’t always contest it because how did Mr. Keyes get on the ballot with only 15 signatures?

MRS. RONDEAU: And it might not have been a focus of his campaign to get on the ballot in Illinois.

MS. MERONI: Yes. So it’s kind-of complicated, but I think it’s fairly consistent across all states, although I don’t have any expertise about other states.  However, I know that all elections are managed at the state level and then the state generally disperses that management to the local level.

MRS. RONDEAU: How can citizens learn what they can do to determine whether or not candidates for office are properly qualified?

MS. MERONI: We would like to spread this information across the country.  It’s a little bit late, as many of the primary periods have passed, but certainly not all of them.  The best way to get information is to call the state and county election boards.  The clerks, at least in Illinois, are amazingly helpful, and they care; they bend over backwards; they seem to be so surprised to have a citizen call in.  That, to me, is the fastest way to get through the maze:  call an election clerk.

Everybody is getting onto the web now and it’s brand-new, so a lot of these websites are complicated and still evolving in regard to being user-friendly.  Call the clerk; they’ll stay on the phone with you and walk you right through the website.  That’s what I would say to people:  if you know you have another election period coming up and there are still candidates rushing out to get signatures, then you can challenge them.

MRS. RONDEAU: Or if you suspect that someone is an illegal alien running for office, you could challenge that?

MS. MERONI: Yes, and you should challenge that, absolutely.  But if you don’t challenge it during your short contest period, then you’re going to lack the standing that everybody lacks in the case of Obama.

This hurt to do this, actually; it wasn’t easy, because I don’t want to do anything to upset the third-party candidates.  I believe that we need to have the voice of all the people heard and not just the Democrats and the Republicans.  This is not a challenge against the candidates personally; in fact, one of them is Andy Martin.  To me, however, even more important than their right to be on the ballot is my right to have a constitutional ballot.  I really grappled with that, and I don’t know another way to have this issue addressed so that we know that our candidates are constitutionally verified.  If they’re not, then let’s remove them from the ballot and get somebody who is.  So the long-term objective would be to have the legislative body make a stipulation that part of that checklist for conformity includes verification of constitutional eligibility.

MRS. RONDEAU: Could someone ask a state legislator to introduce such a bill during the next convening of the legislature?

MS. MERONI: Yes, but the truth is that it won’t make it in Illinois’s legislative session because Illinois is controlled by Democrats, and even if it were controlled by Republicans, there is an inherent prejudice in that the legislators want to be re-elected.  So that’s why election law tends to be so distorted; it’s distorted on the side of the people currently holding office who make the rules.  And that’s one of the strategies that I discussed with election experts:  taking it to the legislative body.  I concluded that I have no chance there right now, which is a shame.  The only way I’m going to get a chance is if we get into the system and people hear about it and come to understand, and then they push it forward from the ground up.  Other than that, there is no conversation about this topic, and yet, we could have an constitutionally unqualified person administering law in any position in Illinois.

MRS. RONDEAU: Is there a chance that if someone had objected during the five-day contest period back in 2007 or 2008 that Obama might have actually had to show his birth certificate and other proof that he is a “natural born Citizen”?

MS. MERONI: Yes, and that’s one of the things I’m testing.  I believe that’s one of the challenges that I’m sure I’m going to face when I go before the Board:  “What standing do you have to say that this person is not eligible? ” And all I can say is, “On what basis does he say that he is?  How can I know it?” and the burden of proof is on the signer of the statement of candidacy; it’s not on me.  They’ve signed it, and this is my time to challenge that contest and signature.  Going directly back to Mr. Obama, by testing it now, it gives us an understanding of what we’re going to face in 2011, when this will come up.  So that’s part of the question:  what’s going to come up.  Also, it’s a wake-up to Mr. Obama because we’re not asleep anymore, and if he doesn’t qualify, then he’s not even going to run.  That’s what I think:  if he doesn’t qualify, he’s not going to run. If he does, and we prove that he’s not constitutionally eligible, we will have a huge constitutional crisis because we’ve had a “president” whom now we would find out isn’t eligible.  To me, he never intended to be in office any longer than one term, and of course there are grave questions about his constitutional eligibility that have never been answered.

MRS. RONDEAU: So one person could do what you’re doing during any election cycle as long as it’s during the designated period and file an objection to Obama’s constitutional eligibility and have standing to find out?

MS. MERONI: It’s the political parties which screen major-party candidates for eligibility for the ballot.  Still,  however, when they present their candidate on the ballot, any citizen could challenge it.  We’re still learning how the Board is going to address this, because I don’t know.  As far as I understand, there’s no precedent on constitutional eligibility.

But the other side of it is that Mr. Obama has a higher standard of citizenship than everyone else.  He has to be a “natural born Citizen.”  The third part of this is that the state of Illinois and the federal government lack a justiciable definition of “natural born Citizen.”  What I uncovered in my research is that when I go to challenge Mr. Obama as to whether or not he is a “natural born Citizen,” the test is:  how do I challenge it?  So it would have to go up to the higher court to come out with a definition of “natural born Citizen.”  Because Illinois fails to provide a definition, in my earlier lawsuit, I stated that that was unfair, because how could I challenge something that doesn’t exist?

In the statement of candidacy, the candidate says “I am legally qualified for this office,” so the question arises about what “legally qualified for this office” means if there’s no definition for the term “natural born Citizen.”  We all know what a Citizen is, so it’s not an issue in my objection going on now in the Illinois State Board of Elections.  But this would happen at the next level when I say, “If he says that he’s legally qualified, by what measure is he affirming that by his signature?”

So that challenge will come.  As as far as I’m concerned, no matter what, he can’t run for a second term.  He won’t go through that challenge because if he does, then what will instantly happen is it will be rushed through the courts to get a definition of “natural born Citizen.”  Chances are that it would go to the Supreme Court, and then the question would arise about Obama’s appointee(s):  would they have to recuse themselves for conflict of interest?  The court will have to decide the definition of “natural born Citizen,” and that will have to be done very quickly between 2010 and 2011.  They can’t take their time on that, because election matters are very quickly pushed through the courts.  After the election, they might take forever, but during that special objection period, as soon as an objection is made, it goes into a hearing within a week, and then there’s a determination and then there are immediate court challenges. In Illinois, all of those court challenges get pushed to the top of the docket.

MRS. RONDEAU: Do you think it’s accurate to say that your research has shown how citizens can take the power that was given to them by the Constitution and use it to make sure that their elected officials qualify by all standards set forth in the law?

MS. MERONI: Absolutely, and in the Constitution.  Right now we’re working in tandem with the United States Justice Foundation to build a template to assist citizens across the country to get into their state elections systems and find out how to go about entering objections.  It’s not uniform, so we can’t just say, “This is the perfect formula.”  We just say, “If you use this process, it will make your discovery much quicker.”

MRS. RONDEAU: Regarding the five-day objection period in Illinois, do you know how long the law has been on the books?

MS. MERONI: I’m not sure how long the objection period has been five days, but there has been an objection period for at least 100 years.  It could go back much longer than that.  I do know that there have been lawsuits that were filed and decided upon in my local appeals court over 100 years ago that related to the whole apparent conformity concept and they referenced the five-day period there, so I’m assuming it’s at least that old.

The other thing about the law that people should understand is that if they want to put something on the ballot, such as a referendum, in Illinois, at least, it mandates what’s called a “public posting period.”  I’m assuming that most states have public posting periods for whatever the action is that is contemplated by government.  In Illinois, they have a set period for everything, and all proposed actions have to be put in the newspaper and other places.  The law mandates how it has to be posted for the public to know.  However, no posting is required for the five-day objection period; it’s optional.  So that’s why when you go on the website, you can’t find anything that mentions the five-day objection period.  It’s just not there.

MRS. RONDEAU: Do you know why they don’t have to publicize it?

MS. MERONI: Because they don’t want citizens to object to candidates.  Because who wrote the law?  Politicians wrote it, and they already know how the game is played, so they don’t have to be notified.

MRS. RONDEAU: Where did you find most of the information on Illinois election law?

MS. MERONI: I read through three thick books which are about 800 pages each. McHenry County, Illinois, is one of the most amazing little places, and the judge of our district set up a law library for us.  I spent quite a bit of time there talking to the different professionals.  I was outside of their normal exposure, but they were able to direct me to the correct text.  I think that’s the first place people should start:  find out if you have a free library through your county court system.  It seems to be a movement that is spreading across the country, but I do understand that McHenry County was one of the first in Illinois.  Also, I understand that a lot of libraries will feature legal texts in one of their branches.  If you call your local library, they can tell you which library in their system is the legal repository.

All I really needed was the Illinois Election Code, and that’s also posted online.  It was a little cumbersome to read it that way because I still like to have things in my hand.  You have to keep looking for information.  The other thing I found out that really blew me away is that election law is a highly-trained specialty, and there are not many election lawyers who are qualified to answer your questions right off the cuff.  Most of these election lawyers make their money arguing before the State Election Boards or the major parties.  So when you’re dealing in election law, you’re dealing with an extremely limited pool of lawyers, and those lawyers have interests that very likely are in conflict with the kind of thing that you’re challenging.  So I found you have to be careful as you look for that advice.  And, who will take it?  A lot of lawyers will say “I can’t take it” because I have  a conflict of interest.

MRS. RONDEAU: So where does that leave the matter of qualifying candidates?

MS. MERONI: The solution is the citizen.  We’re not stupid; we know how to do research, and that’s what each one of us needs to do to ensure that our candidates are properly screened.  If we don’t want to be one world, then we have to behave as if we’re a community.  We have to get into the community because that truly is the genius of our U.S. Constitution:  it’s meant to be administered locally.  I have never been politically active in my life; in fact, I used to think about going to meetings as the last thing on my list.  “Who would want to go to a political meeting?” was the attitude I always had.  But now that I have gotten involved, I see how limited my vision was.  It’s exhilarating, it’s fascinating, there are people at all levels who are reaching out to change their government.  It is also sometimes deeply politically agonizing because there are factions, and at the local level, you’re engaged in your issue and you care passionately.  But don’t let that dissuade you; just keep raising the bar as high as you can to stay focused on the most important point.  That’s what I think is one of the things that’s been happening to the tea partyers who have taken that wonderful step to get involved locally; they’re finding some of the issues that they’re confronting to be so factionalizing.  That’s part of the game, and we just have to rise above it, and how we do that helps to determine how successful we’ll be in doing what we’re supposed to do:  being part of our local political establishment.  For me, this has become an obligation.

MRS. RONDEAU: Do you know when your objections will be heard this coming Tuesday?

MS. MERONI: Well, I have 32 objections, and I think there are an additional 28 or so coming from others, so that makes about 60.  The process will go on for at least 30 days because they’ll have to hold a hearing for each one of the objections.

MRS. RONDEAU: What do you believe the state will do to ascertain the eligibility of the candidates you’ve challenged?

MS. MERONI: This is essentially a test, a sincere test to find out what type of information the candidates will be asked to provide to prove their eligibility, so I really don’t know how it will proceed.  There are some wild cards.  One is what the State Board of Elections will do:  will they simply make one ruling that says everyone has to show a birth certificate, and then we’re done, and then they’ll just dismiss my objection out of hand?  If they do that, then I lack standing to challenge it.  That could be one solution.  Or maybe a candidate will refuse to produce verification.  If I get a ruling that the onus of proof is on the signer, then I can take that ruling and say, “Look, they’ve ruled at this level that he has to prove it.  I may lack standing, but he still has the responsibility to prove it.” Then I would have something that would throw me back into court, wouldn’t I?

Obama came in under the secrecy of election law, at which he is an expert; that’s how he won the other elections.  I’m sure the strategy was very well-calculated, and they assessed their risk factors and decided to go for it.  There still are those risk factors, and Obama’s risk factor is that he can’t run again.  If you look at the history, while in China, he made the statement that he would serve only one term.  I think he knows it, and we can’t sit back and assume that he’s going to run again, but if we don’t do something, then we leave the door open for that and we lose the chance a second time.

MRS. RONDEAU: Thank you very much for explaining your petition in such great detail.  The Post & Email will follow up with you next week after the July 6 hearing, and we wish you the best as you go forward with your action.