[mikefocke]

AZ law that says supply an original birth certificate or don't be on the ballot. It kinda doesn't define original does it. Since the original certificate is in the state archives and never leaves there no one will be able to comply. Everything else is a copy or a certified copy (which is what the certificate of Obama is that they are showing on TV). Sometimes in some states a certificate (often issued by the state's Dept of Health) is a photocopy, sometimes a typed certificate, sometimes a handwritten certificate, now most often computer generated. For my kids born in VA I think I've seen all 3 kinds.

It is almost as if the lawmakers have a hospital certificate in mind which is nothing but a souvenir, it isn't a birth certificate in the legal sense.

I'm trying to remember all the blanks on our DC forms and if they met all the criteria for witnesses signatures that the proposed AZ law is said to require. I don't think so. I do remember that the forms changed over the years with the older 1890s certificates having little info and being filled out by the midwife, doctor or mother while the 1960s forms were in two parts and the second part about the health aspects of the mother and birth were separated from the birth certificate and used for public health statistical studies. You weren't allowed to reassemble the two parts into one document for privacy/legal reasons. And those certificates were mostly typed but occasionally we'd get a back seat of a taxicab certificate and I'm sure those would lack the required number of witness signatures. I'm presuming these forms by the '60s were pretty uniform state to state.

Please lawmakers do some homework before offering silly legislative proposals. Base them on facts and the law, not emotion.