Thanks for the links. Those are helpful.
I’m not seeing where the Constitution gives Congress the right to decide who will be seated, but only in determining who won the electoral vote - except in cases where both the Pres and VP elect have failed to qualify.
After the winner is declared by Congress, the President elect and Vice President elect can still “fail to qualify”. The Constitution doesn’t specifically state who determines whether they failed to qualify, but the failure to qualify can happen independently of Congress’ certification of the electoral winner so I don’t think it should be assumed that Congress has that power - especially since it would require interpreting and applying the term “natural born US citizen”, and Article III specifically gives the judiciary the job of interpreting and applying the Constitution to specific cases.
It’s been a while since I looked at the vote-counting statute. I’ll look at it after I post to check for sure, but I thought there was a stipulation about the counting being completed in one day. Am I imagining that? I’ll have to check that out. If electoral votes were contested on grounds of Constitutional ineligibility it would require a judicial decision because each state is responsible for its own election and it would be members of Congress pitted against a state SOS claiming that the candidate was eligible (although actually a bunch of the SOS’s claim that they have to accept a candidate on the ballot if certified as eligible by the political party).
Let me ask you this. If members of Congress had contested, say, California’s electoral votes because the Keyes case was still pending, how should the rest of the story go? What should have happened from there, on the day the electoral winner was supposed to be certified and the days and weeks afterward?
"President elect" means the candidate obtained a majority of legitimate electoral votes, not that this person is qualified.
The form of objection is unstated, beyond having to be in writing and clearly, concisely, and without argument, stating the grounds for objection. See, perhaps, for a parallel, the argument in Congress surrounding the seating of Smith (1789) on account of his not being a citizen for the required 7 years.
Given the objection, or question, Congress is required to vote on the objection. There is a time limit for debate, 2 hours! (3 USC 17).
3 USC 19 states the possibility of vacancy in the office of president, by reason of failure to qualify. If neither the president elect nor VP elect qualify, the Speaker (or whoever down the line of succession is qualified) becomes president until there is a qualified president, which may take as long as the 4 year term.
-- If contested on grounds of Constitutional ineligibility it would require a judicial decision because each state is responsible for its own election and it would be members of Congress pitted against a state SOS claiming that the candidate was eligible ... --
I think the issue of eligibility would run against the political party, not the state. From the state's perspective, the voters have chosen an elector, not a president - and it is up to the elector to vote for a qualified candidate.
-- If members of Congress had contested, say, California's electoral votes because the Keyes case was still pending, how should the rest of the story go? --
Congress has a free hand here. If Congress has a question about the qualifications of the person obtaining a majority of the electoral votes, it needs to settle that issue, publicly.
I think Congress is utterly corrupt and derelict. IT can see the party candidates coming from months away. It saw fit to paper-over McCain's qualification in advance. Why not a similar papering over for born dual citizen Obama?