Another Step Forward in Republican Campaign to Disenfranchise Voters Who Don’t Vote for Republicans

Republican Wants to Get President Obama’s Name Off the Arizona Ballot

The Dismal Political Economist is skeptical, but Democrats are insisting that Arizona is a possible win for them. The state Republicans have turned bitterly anti-Hispanic and Conservatives have passed laws that even Conservative Gov. Jan Brewer finds offensive.  However, The Dismal Political Economist’s skepticism is somewhat reduced by a campaign of the state Republicans to deny Mr. Obama a place on the ballot in the fall election.  Maybe Republicans are worried and Democrats do have reason to be hopeful.

Arizona’s top election official said in a radio interview Thursday that it’s “possible” President Obama may not make the state’s November ballot due to unanswered questions about his birth certificate.

Now of course everyone is certain that the person in Arizona who supervises elections is fair and unbiased and is totally objective.  Well, maybe not.

Ken Bennett, a Republican who is eyeing a bid to succeed Gov. Jan Brewer (R) in 2014, told conservative radio host Mike Broomhead that he is “not playing to the birthers.”

“I’m not a birther,” Bennett said in the interview on KFYI. “I believe that the president was born in Hawaii – or at least, I hope he was.”

But he added: “My responsibility as secretary of state is to make sure that the ballots in Arizona are correct and that those people whose names are on the ballot have met the qualifications of the office they are seeking.”

Mr. Bennett has made the basic, insincere effort here,

Bennett told Broomhead that he responded to those e-mails by noting that it’s not possible to get the original copy of Obama’s birth certificate – or even of his own birth certificate, for that matter – but that he would request that officials in the state of Hawaii to “verify” that they had a birth certificate in their records for Obama.

“Essentially if they can’t say yes to that simple question, it makes me wonder if we have to take it to another level,” Bennett said.

He added that Hawaii officials had responded with a request of its own, asking Bennett to cite the state laws authorizing him to make such a request. Bennett said his office responded via e-mail and that he has not heard back from Hawaii officials for two months.

knowing full well that privacy laws among other things, you know those things that keep government from releasing private information of its citizens probably does not permit Hawaii or any other state to provide the information on births that he wants.  As for Mr. Bennett, this Forum would like him to produce proof that he is a decent human being, which we believe would be much harder than asking Mr. Obama to demonstrate he was born in the United States, because he was.

But of course, that is not the issue here anyway.  Mr. Bennett’s goal is to keep Arizona safely in Republican hands, and if that means acting like the former Communist countries or Iraq under Saddam Hussein who allowed free elections all the time, with only the Communist candidate or Mr. Hussein on the ballot, well what’s the problem?

And as for federal law playing any role here, don't expect the Supreme Court to interfere.  As they showed in Bush v. Gore in the 2000 election involving Florida, they cede all election issues to the states and would never, ever tell a state what to do involving a Presidential vote.