J. B. Williams, a U.S. resident who blogs for the Canada Free Press blog, has posted what he says are two different versions of the certification prepared by officials of the Democratic National Convention of 2008, immediately at the close of the convention. Both versions, as shown on his website, are signed by the Chair of the National Convention, the Secretary of the National Convention, and a Colorado notary public (the convention was in Denver, Colorado). The purpose of these certifications is to send official notification to elections officials in each state, plus the District of Columbia, advising them officially of the names and addresses of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees.
One version has the language that the Democratic nominees “are legally qualified to serve under the provisions of the United States Constitution”, and the other version omits this language. Williams says the second version was sent out to each state election official. However, a comment on his website says that the first version was sent to the Hawaii elections officials.
Williams posted a copy of the 2008 Republican certification, which contains language that John McCain and Sarah Palin meet the constitutional qualifications. Ballot Access News happens to have copies of the 1980 certifications of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and the 1980 certifications do not contain any reference to the candidates being qualified under the Constitution.
These certifications are not forms prepared by any state. No state requires any particular type of form for this purpose. However, about half the states do require the qualified parties to notify them officially of whom their presidential electors are pledged to vote for in the Electoral College. In the remaining states, the law is silent, and presumably state elections officials would rely on the newspapers if they didn’t receive such certifications. It is not known when the national conventions first started the habit of preparing them and sending them to each state. Probably one of the reasons they were first prepared was so that elections officials in each state would print the name of the candidates on their ballots precisely as the candidates wished their names to appear. There are frequently ambiguities about the form of candidates’ names, such as whether the candidate wants his or her middle name to appear, or to use a middle initial. Jimmy Carter was keen that all states print “Jimmy Carter” on the ballot, not “James Earl Carter”, for example.
The only significance of the fact that two versions of the 2008 Democratic certifications were prepared, is that apparently someone in the party decided not to include the language about the candidates being qualified under the Constitution, and went to the bother of preparing a second certification the same day without that language. The certifications are prepared in great haste. The Texas certification, in particular, was late, under Texas election law, because the Texas deadline for receiving certification was the day before the convention chose its nominees. However, Texas officials excused the lateness of the filing.
Here is a link to CanadaFreePress and J. B. Williams’ blog post, showing both versions of the 2008 Democratic certification, and the 2008 Republican certification.
Pelosi signed both copies. Does she know that Obama is NOT a natural born citizen or does she have an agenda of NOT upholding the Consitution?
More of the Obama qualification coverup CONSPIRACY ???
Since when does a gang of party hacks have any power to say that any party hack candidate is qualified for a public office ???
More meaningless moron hype from the moron party hacks.
SOOOO – who or what has *standing* to claim that a Prez does NOT have the qualifications required to be a Prez ???
The 50 alleged sovereign States (via State Atty. Gens.) — see Art. VII ???
The sovereign *We the People* in the Preamble ???
ANY Elector-Voter in ANY State that elects Prez electors ???
A U.S.A. District Attorney who is NOT a party hack ???
A U.S.A. Grand Jury ???
Folks from outer space ???
ONLY 5 of the 9 party hack Supremes know for sure ???
two trial versions seems believable given the DEM national committee was attempting to strategize /game the electoral college/ popular vote systems (i.e. win the 2008 national election) with unique (questionable) natural born citizenship/ native citizen personal history of McCain as the obvious opponent and with the additional issue of attempting to promote illegal immigrant citizenship rights question on the progressive DEM agenda as well.
“In the remaining states, the law is silent, and presumably state elections officials would rely on the newspapers if they didn’t receive such certifications”
I suppose the states could rely on Fact Check.org or some other partisan group to get their info as well. It’s official we are now a Bananna Republic
What a JOKE.
“Ballot Access News happens to have copies of the 1980 certifications of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and the 1980 certifications do not contain any reference to the candidates being qualified under the Constitution.”
For transparency purposes, and to allow your readers to assess the full significance of the documents, would you please scan the 1980 certifications and make them available on your website? What is the provenance of the 1980 documents? How did you obtain them? Do you know which States received these certifications? Could other, different, versions of the certifications have been sent, in 1980, to certain States, such as Hawaii, that had specific requirements as to the wording of the nomination certifications?
It’s quite disappointing to see an otherwise worthy site posting trash of this sort. It’s a thinly disguised and craven effort to pander to worst of the right-wing blowhards.
You’re better than this, RW.
the link to the two certificates does not work
I am NOT “editor” of Canada Free Press. Judi McLeod is the editor and owner/operator of CFP.
I’m just an angry American who wants my constitutional republic back.
Why are “right-wing blowhards” the only folks upset about the silence coup of our once free nation and all the fraud that has taken place to make it possible?
The reason I have copies of the 1980 certifications is that I wrote away for copies, back in 1983, after I discovered a 1972 Maryland Attorney General Opinion that said a party didn’t need to do a 3% petition to place its presidential candidate on the November ballot, if it had status as a political party and if it furnished such a certification. This discovery saved all the minor parties from the need to submit 61,891 valid signatures to place their presidential candidates on the Maryland 1984 ballot. I shared this information, and as a result the Workers World Party, the Libertarian Party, the Communist Party, and the New Alliance Party, all got on the Maryland ballot for president in 1984.
I don’t have a scanner, but if anyone wants to see the 1980 certifications, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Richard Winger, PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147, and I will send copies of both the Democratic and the Republican certifications.
Towards this blog discussion (and Leo Donofrio’s law blog http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/ I have alerted and am in the process of “FOILing” the NYS SOS/BOE regarding presidential NYS ballot certifications for major (all) parties since 1980.
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the reply. Would you ask one of your friends to scan the 1980 documents and put them online? This would really help to move this debate forward.
Richard,
You have ignored my reasonable request to put the 1980 documents online. People are entitled to draw inferences from that omission.
I have not ignored your request. I have offered to send you copies of the 1980 certifications if you provide me with a postal address. If you don’t want to share your postal address with me, then provide the postal address of some friend of yours.
Richard,
Why won’t you just arrange to post the documents online for everyone to see?
This does not look good, Richard.
This does not look good, Richard