On October 31, Hawaii’s Vital Statistics Office told the press that they have verified the validity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate in that state. See this article. Thanks to the commenters who made me aware of this news. Apparently, besides Phil Berg’s lawsuit in Pennsylvania over Obama’s citizenship, there have been somewhat parallel lawsuits filed and already dismissed in Ohio, Hawaii, and Washington state, and perhaps others.

In September 2008, former California State Senator Steve Peace (D-San Diego) had filed a proposed initiative with the California Attorney General. However, according to the Sacramento Bee of October 31, he has withdrawn his own initiative. The article does not explain why. However, the initiative had been flawed. Perhaps Peace withdrew it so that he, or someone else, could do a better job of drafting it. Thanks to Kevin Takenaga for this news.

New York state still uses mechanical voting machines, so it is possible for elections administrators to delete candidates at the last minute, and substitute new candidates. On October 31, the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 4th district, deleted Jonathan Powers from the ballot as the Working Families Party nominee for U.S. House, 26th district. The court replaced him with Alice Kryzan. Kryzan is also the Democratic nominee.

Of course, voters who voted absentee in this district will lose their votes, if they voted for Powers. Powers had been the only Working Families Party nominee this year for Congress who is not also the Democratic Party nominee.

Powers did not want to be on the November ballot as the Working Families Party nominee. After he lost the Democratic primary in September, he moved from New York to Washington, D.C. The issue in this case is whether his move made him ineligible. If he were ineligible, the party had a right to replace him with someone else.

The New York Supreme Court had ruled that under the U.S. Constitution, Powers was still eligible, and therefore there was no legal means for him to be removed from the ballot and replaced by anyone else. However, the Appellate Division reversed that. The Appellate Division decision contradicts the decision of the 5th circuit from 2006, Texas Democratic Party v Benkiser, 459 F.3d 582. That decision pointed out that the U.S. Constitution’s residency requirement for U.S. House candidates is only that the candidate live in the state “when elected”, meaning on the election day itself. However, one could argue that there is a meaningful difference between the Texas decision, filed in June of an election year, and this case, which was filed in October of the election year and decided only 4 days before the election.