Posted at Ballot Access News. This may be of interest to our readers because both America’s Independent presidential candidate Alan Keyes (one of the plaintiffs) and the national website of the Constitution Party have made this a top priority.

See previous IPR reports:

Constitution Party: ‘Why is the media silent on the Obama birth certificate question?’

Titus says Obama eligibility issue up to electors

Constitution Party: is Barack Obama Constitutionally qualified for the Presidency as a natural born citizen?

More from Alan Keyes on his Barack Obama citizenship lawsuit

Alan Keyes files lawsuit over Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as President

The arguments made by people who believe that Barack Obama is not a “natural born citizen” are sometimes very thoughtful and scholarly. For example, see Leo Donofrio’s blog, http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com. Donofrio has discovered that President Chester Alan Arthur, who probably was born in Vermont, but whose father was not a U.S. citizen, went through the naturalization process. Apparently Arthur’s naturalization process was not known to the public during Arthur’s campaign for vice-president in 1880, nor during his presidency.

Nevertheless, the lawsuits trying to stop the electors from voting for Obama on December 15 lack merit. The U.S. Constitution gives the presidential electors full power to vote for anyone they wish, whether the people they vote for are eligible or not. And no one argues that any presidential elector chosen last month, in any state, is not eligible. The only restriction the U.S. Constitution places on electors is that they not vote for two residents (for president and for vice-president) who live in the state that the elector lives in. Furthermore, the U.S. Constitution does not even require a presidential elector to take an oath to support the Constitution. Some states, however, do require such an oath.

The only constitutional remedy to prevent someone from taking the office of President or Vice President, is by Congressional action. Congress is charged with counting the electoral votes in January. Congress is free to reject an electoral vote if Congress believes that electoral vote was cast for someone who is not qualified. This precedent was set in 1873, when Congress refused to count the 3 electoral votes cast for Horace Greeley, who had died after the November 1872 election but before the electors met in December 1872.

Somewhat by analogy, Congress, not any court, has the authority to judge election returns for members of Congress, and to make up its own mind as to whether the election returns announced by state elections officials are accurate or not.

Some states openly place presidential candidates on the ballot even though those presidential candidates freely admit that they do not meet the constitutional qualifications to be president. Other states do not. This is illustrated by the fact that the Socialist Workers Party, which several times has nominated presidential candidates who do not meet the qualifications, has placed such candidates on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Washington. Also, California accepted such a candidate as a declared write-in candidate. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for the link to Leo Donofrio’s webpage.