[GregNH]

The word qualify does not appear until section 19 where it mentions the President "elect." This is because we have determined in section 15 who the President and Vice President elect are. That is the point where qualifications are to be handled. In fact section 19 describes every different situation where someone other than the President elect would assume to act as President and in each case it also declares that that person needs to be "qualified". It is mentioned "nine" times! Not in one of those instances are electoral votes a factor. Now how can one think that any other person or body be responsible for seeing that in these different situations involving the qualification of the President and Vice President elect, or any of the other situation listed, be handled by but Congress?

[Nero Germanicus]

I was hoping for textbook references or cites from research articles to back up your contention.
What is amazing to me is just how little has been written by anybody concerning the phrase “shall have failed to qualify” in the 20th Amendment.

The electoral votes are counted on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. That was December 17th in 2012. So that’s when we have a presumptive president-elect. The Joint Session of Congress held to count and certify the votes of the Electors is held on January 6th but Obama changed the day to January 4th in 2013 because the 6th was a Sunday.

Confirming qualifications is somewhat dysfunctional under the current system since Congress is in Christmas recess from the time the Electors choose the presumptive President-Elect until the counting and certification of the electoral votes which confirms who is the president/vice president.
Those who challenged Obama’s qualifications had almost no time to make their case under the provisions of the 20th Amendment, no matter how one interprets its meaning.
I guess the case can be made that if ne Representative and one Senator are convinced that the president elect dd jot qualify, they can interrupt the certification process and present their argument to their full House of Congress.