A guy named Steve Marquis (steve.marquis@comcast.net)
has challenged whether Obama should even be on Washington's ballot. He's suggesting that maybe Obama was not "native born." So, he's trying to get Obama disqualified.

The guy's actually going to get a hearing in King County Superior Court, although it's doubtful anything will come from it. It's at 10 a.m. Monday before Judge Erlick, Room W 1060, in the King County Courthouse.

If you want to read a report debunking the notion that Obama shouldn't be on the ballot, check out this entry on Snopes.com.

Steve Excell, the No. 2 guy in Sam Reed's office, sent an e-mail to someone who inquired about the challenge and I'm posting it here to give folks an idea of what's going on -- at least, from the Secretary of State's Office perspective.

Between August 25-28, 2008, The Democratic National Central Committee held their annual convention in Denver and nominated Barack Obama for President.

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1, says: 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; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

[More:]

(For all state and local offices, generally, the prospective candidate pays a filing fee, must be a registered voter in the jurisdiction for the office they are seeking, and must sign an affidavit to that effect. There is no background investigation, nor are there any other qualifications for public office as there is for Presidential candidates.)

At anytime over the past two years that Mr. Obama has been running, his qualifications could have been challenged within his own party during the Convention, or someone could have challenged them in Federal Court.

The Courts are very skeptical of any last-minute elections lawsuit filed in the closing weeks of any election because Judges do not like litigants "gaming" the electoral process to win advantages for their candidate or ballot proposition.

The news media claims to have investigated the qualifications of both Presidential candidates and claim both meet the Constitutional requirements. I have no details as to how they reach that conclusion.

Our state law says the major parties Presidential nominees will appear on our General Election ballot. And, we are following that law.

Your question arises perhaps because someone has recently sued us in King County, hoping to force an investigation into Barack Obama's qualifications. Mr. Obama has no nexus nor ties to Washington State, and we have no jurisdiction to investigate matters which occurred in other states. Nor do we have the power to exclude anyone, who files for office, from appearing on the ballot absent a court order.

Hope this helps.
Steve Excell
Assistant Secretary of State