Questions abound on the Internet about Barack Obama’s citizenship and whether he’s eligible to be president. On Monday, a King County judge threw out a challenge to Obama’s placement on Washington’s ballot that was based on that claim.

Today, Hawaiian officials said there’s no doubt Obama was born in the Aloha State.

From The Associated Press:

Health Department Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino said Friday she and the registrar of vital statistics, Alvin Onaka, have personally verified that the health department holds Obama’s original birth certificate.

Fukino says that no state official, including Republican Gov.

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Pierce County Auditor Pat McCarthy says her staff may run the ranked-choice voting computer program on election night.

If they do, it would provide a glimpse of how candidates for county executive, assessor-treasurer, sheriff and County Council District 2 are fairing in early returns under the new voting system.

McCarthy said there’s no guarantee her office will run the computer program that redistributes votes under the new system. She said if there are glitches on election night – like a broken tabulating machine – she’ll stick with her original plan, which is to run the program for the

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Curious about how a few folks in Greenland or Burkina Faso would vote in the U.S. presidential election?

I thought so.

A Web site called theworldfor lets people with Internet access all over the world express their preference between Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain.

It probably should not come as a surprise that “the world” is favoring Obama. Europe is a sea of blue. North and South America, too.

But a few countries are favoring McCain, including Iran, Senegal, Honduras and one dude in the aforementioned Burkina Faso.

Check it out.

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Both Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner agree that voters in Washington’s 8th District are "tech-savvy" individuals.

But which of them is the most tech-savvy candidate?

One might think Burner had this one sewn up – she worked at Microsoft for four years, has a computer science degree and has raised hundreds of thousands from liberal blog-o-philes.

But Reichert, the Republican incumbent, also wants a shot at the title.

Taking a page out of Obama’s book, he’s been creating YouTube responses to Burner’s negative ads and posting "video testimonials" on his campaign Web

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The folks at FiveThirtyEight.com – one of the myriad web sites that compile and analyze presidential polling results – have being examining the presidential race state by state. Today they made it to Washington, or, as they refer to us, "Worshington."

Making expected but annoying appearances are clichés about Starbucks, hipsters, etc. They throw in polite nods to military vets and Mormons.

Judge for yourself. You can read it here.

Everyone wants to know: who’s posting these signs? They appeared on local streets in the last few days.

They seem to be a reference to the Master Builders Association’s support of county executive candidate Pat McCarthy. Earlier this month fellow exec candidate Calvin Goings accused the MBA of trying to buy the executive’s office through independent spending on her behalf. According to its latest campaign report, the group (through the committee Better Pierce County) has spent more than $85,000 to support McCarthy.

Of course, McCarthy can’t "return" the independent expenditure

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In today’s article about campaign contributions to county executive candidates, I reported the Master Builders Association of Tacoma-Pierce County has spent nearly $49,000 on an independent campaign to support Pat McCarthy. That’s an old figure.

According to a report filed Monday with the state Public Disclosure Commission, the MBA and its allies (through a committee called Better Pierce County) have spent more than $85,000 for McCarthy.

Thanks to John Wyble of the Calvin Goings campaign for pointing it out. We’re running a correction in tomorrow’s paper.

Update: Some folks have asked where I got the $85,000

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Over on our Lights & Sirens blog, Ian Demsky has this gem:

Came across this interesting tidbit among my prison mail today.

A McNeil Island inmate writes:

Tonight we roared when Obama sent my $5 donation back saying, “We accept no money from prisoners!”

Update: After a commenter said he suspected the story might be a hoax, we contacted a spokesman with the local Obama campaign and asked whether they accepted donations from inmates.

After that e-mail last Wednesday, spokesman Joshua Field said he’d look into

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