The only scenario that would have ever worked is if one (1) State Attorney General, or Governor, or responsible election authority under a state constitution had thought enough of the difficulties Obama presented, and in an effort to clarify the ambiguities, had tossed him from the state ballot.
That, BTW, happens in many a state election, as the authorities do their jobs and check the eligibility of candidates for every elected office in a state and respond to complaints. E.G., Rahm Emmnauel had to go to court as a Plaintiff to be re-placed on the ballot after a residency challenge to his eligibility to run for mayor.
In these cases, the election authorities become the defendant and the removed party, the Plaintiff. He has been "damaged" by removal from the ballot.
In the case of all those lawsuits fought, quashed, or totally ignored by Team Obam, The Courts, as time went on, were completely justified in claiming res judicata and thus merely dismissing the case.
That is where we are today. The courts, as they do, feed off one another. The SCOTUS seems determined to sit this issue out, hoping it will go away when Obama leaves office.
However, there is a larger issue the SCOTUS is leaving on the table, and that is "who or what is a citizen?" Instead of taking up a case, the SCOTUS seems content to let this question be answered bureaucratically. I don't think that is right for the offspring of two illegal aliens, or indeed legal aliens, to become an automatic citizen of the US. I can easily accept dual citizenship, after both parents are naturalized, but I do not think (or feel) that this is a Natural Born Citizen.
In the case on one US citizen parent, and the child born overseas ... speak, SCOTUS!
There is a difference between candidates for state offices and candidates for national office.
Most of the states’ election laws state unequivocably that if a candidate is the nominee of a national political party, that candidate automatically qualifies for the state ballot. There is no state level discretion over a federal office candidate. Every state’s legislature had four years to amend their law between 2008 and 2012. None did.
For example, the Alabama Supreme Court has before it a challenge to Obama’s 2012 ballot eligibility (Mc Innish & Goode v. Secretary of State Beth Chapman). The Alabama Code of Laws states: “The Secretary of State shall certify the names of all candidates for president and vice president who are nominated by any national party convention.”—
Alabama Code §17-14-31(a)
The Alabama law doesn’t say that the Secretary of State “can” certify or “might” certify; it says “SHALL” certify. Its the same in most states. In two red states (Arizona and Kansas), won by Romney, the Secretaries of State did take the additional step of getting verification of Obama’s birth in Hawaii from the state of Hawaii. Both Arizona’s and Kansas’ Chief Elections Officials then approved Obama for the ballot.
Congress has the power to disqualify an ineligible president-elect under the “failed to qualify” provision of the 20th Amendment.”
It only takes two members of Congress (one Senator and one Representative) out of 535 members to challenge the Electors of a president-elect and stop the certification of that president-elect’s Electors until the challenge is resolved in both Houses of Congress. If enough states had challenged Obama’s electors on the basis that they had voted for an ineligible candidate and Obama went to below 270 electoral votes, he could not have become president.
From the 20th Amendment: “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have FAILED TO QUALIFY, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.”—20th Amendment, Section 3