[Update below post] Illinois Supreme Court grants Emanuel stay and orders his name to on ballots. (Unofficial until I can find links confirming.)The Chicago Board of Elections is out of time and must send out the ballots to the printer and due to the recent appeals court in Chicago's ruling that Rahm Emanuel, former Obama chief of staff, does not meet the residency requirements to be on the ballot as a mayoral candidate, those ballots will be printed without Emanuael's name.
The appeals court ruling overturned the Chicago Board of Elections' decision in allowing Emanuel to be on the ballot and a Cook County Circuit Court's ruling which upheld that decision.
According to the ruling a "candidate must meet not only the Election Code's voter residency standard, but also must have actually resided within the municipality for one year prior to the election, a qualification that the candidate unquestionably does not satisfy."
Emanuel resided in Washington as Obama's chief of staff and resigned in October 2010, moved back to Chicago and immediately announced his intention to run for Mayor.
The ruling itself can be found here.
Emanuel plans to go to the Illinois Supreme Court to appeal the appeals court's decision, but with the Chicago Board of Elections' running out of time to get the ballots to the printer, even if the Illinois Supreme Court overturns the appeals court's decision, Emanuel's name may not be on the ballot.
Touch screen early voting is to begin on Monday and absentee and military ballots are expected to be mailed out. Should the higher court rule in Emanuel's favor, those votes will still count made without his name on the ballot, even if the higher court, should they agree to hear the case, orders new ballots to be printed.
In an interesting turn of events, The Politico reports that an Obama confidante claims Barack Obama believes Emanuel is eligible, just as The American Thinker reports Mike Evans, a long-time friend of Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie, claims Abercrombie told him "There is no Barack Obama birth certificate in Hawaii, absolutely no proof at all that Obama was born in Hawaii."
Then updates with this:
Writing at WND, Jerome Corsi features a sworn affidavit from former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams "swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and thatneitherQueens Medical Center nor Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu had any record of Obama having been born in their medical facilities." Check it out here.
I added The American Thinker report simply because of the irony of Barack Obama speaking about eligibility was too amusing to pass up when according to CNN polling from August 2010 a quarter of the American population doubt Obama was born in the United States.
...According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, more than a quarter of the public have doubts about Obama's citizenship, with 11 percent saying Obama was definitely not born in the United States and another 16 percent saying the president was probably not born in the country.
For the record, this blog and it's writers have never been part of the "birther" movement even though the writers do have their own opinion on the subject. We do not ban or moderate comments from those that do not believe Barack Obama was eligible for his seat as President. People are entitled to their own opinions until proof one way or another is provided.
[Update] Emanuel's emergency appeal to keep his name on the ballot can be found here.
[Update #2] Illinois Supreme Court grants Emanuel stay and orders his name to on ballots. (Unofficial until I can find links confirming.)
NBCChicago's Ward Room reports one minute ago that the Illinois higher court has granted Emanuel his emergency motion and stay, ordering his name be put on the ballots.
“Emergency motion for stay pending appeal is allowed in part," the motion reads.
And not a moment too soon. Ballots are being printed today.
According to the motion, “Board of Election is directed that if any ballots are printed while this court is considering the case the ballots should include the name of petitioner Rahm Emanuel as a candidate for the mayor of City of Chicago."
This is not a ruling on the residency issue and the higher court has not overturned the appeals court ruling saying Emanuel is not eligible. Instead they are ordering his name be put on the ballots that are to be sent to printing today while they decide the residency issue.
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