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You know, at first blush I agree with you except for one thing. Consider this:
The Electoral College votes (EC) and the results go to the House where they are charged with determining th eligibility of the candidate who wins. The rules there specifically state (I'll find them if I must) that if the House finds that the winner is ineligible the House declares the 2nd place vote getter to be President.
Now it use to be 2nd place was named Vice President anyway. But now, Vice President isn't a separate ticket, they are together. Second place would have been Mccain/Palin. So there is an argument that the election would go back to the House where they would be compelled to unravel the election, and declare the 2nd place to be President.
I'm not saying you are wrong, just that there is specific language in the rules for just such an occurrence. What isn't contemplated is what happens if the House doesn't catch the ineligibility and it is caught later. But still I think Constitutionally it would fall back to the House to fix. I would expect them to try to declare Biden to be President, but I don't know.
I'm going to post this so that EVERYONE who thinks we are powerless to do something about this understands how best to go about it. We need to find the legal remedy enabling us to charge our representatives with disobeying their oaths of office and start removing them one by one. Here is the case.
Exhibit A, The Twentieth Amendment, Section 3 reads as follows:
" ”3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. 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.”
Exhibit B U. S. Code, CITE: 3USC19
TITLE 3--THE PRESIDENT, CHAPTER 1- PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND VACANCIES
Sec. 19. Vacancy in offices of both President and Vice President; officers eligible to act
”(a)(1) If, by reason of death, resignation, removal from office, inability, or failure to qualify, there is neither a President nor Vice President to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as Representative in Congress, act as President. “
Exhibit C: U. S. Constitution, Article Six Oath of Office for elected officials:
” The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
Exhibit D: The Electoral Vote Counting Act of 1877:
The process currently provides that someone “challenge” the electoral votes during a short, specified time frame while the Electoral College votes are opened and tabulated. This process does not cover challenges to "eligibility" qualifications. In fact, if this act pretends to do so in the manner in which it prescribes, it is unconstitutional. Any act of this sort that does not require that qualifications be presented by the President elect serves to undercut the provisions in the Constitution itself. No act that does not support the Constitution is constitutional. In order to change the requirements of the Twentieth amendment, one would need to pass another amendment. An “Act” doesn’t cut the mustard.
The portion in bold stating “or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify” in section three is particularly interesting in that it plainly seems to infer that a “qualification” of some sort must be made in order to serve as President. Certainly, one cannot argue that it does not require a qualification process for one to “qualify”. To infer that the lack of a “specified” qualification process means that stated eligibility “qualifications” for the office of president can be ignored is fallacious. The wording of this passage in the twentieth amendment clearly infers that a qualification is required, regardless of how this is done.
There is only one set of qualifications listed anywhere in the Constitution that are not health related and they are listed in Article two, section one.
” No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
To satisfy meeting the requirement of the twentieth amendment to “qualify”, a president elect must present evidence that he meets it’s requirements for eligibility to serve. This means that a proper birth certificate HAD to be presented by the president elect in order to serve as president. In fact, without establishing whether or not the President elect is "qualified", Congress would not know whether or not to step in and name a temporary replacement as the Amendment requires. Certainly, this means that the proof of "qualifications" must be presented to Congress.
If this was done, where is that certificate and to whom was it presented? If this was done, why would we not have the right to verify and inspect it under the freedom of information act?
If it was NOT done, then under the provisions of the twentieth amendment, Barrack Obama has “failed to qualify” and should not be serving as president of the United States of America.
Based upon the above, I conclude that:
1. We currently have a vacancy at President because no one has yet “qualified” as required in the Twentieth amendment. The terms "The President elect shall have failed to qualify" clearly places this burden upon the President elect and not on someone raising their hand in objection.
2. Anyone serving in Congress (see “Congress” in bold in Exhibit A), or anyone who is currently serving under the oath of office in Article six has "standing" and can DEMAND that their oaths be met by receiving proper “qualifying” documentation from Mr. Obama. This charade at the time of counting the Electoral College votes does not limit their ability to do so at any time they so choose. The very fact that they are duty-bound by oath to "support" the Constitution REQUIRES them to respond to any and all attacks against it. No judge can deny any of them the standing to do so. It would ask them to break the law in their effort to enforce the law.
3. We need to start pressing legal charges against all of our local representatives and senators covered by the oath of office in Article six for disobeying their oaths to support the Constitution as it pertains to the language of section three of the Twentieth amendment. Put PRESSURE on them to represent the document that gives them their authority in the first place. We are looking into how best to do this down here. We all should be looking into this approach. NOW.
Please look it up.
You're confusing two things. The House does what you say if no one has 270 certified EVs.
But before you get there, a special Joint Session of Congress, with the outgoing VP in the chair, opens, counts, and certifies the EVs.
This happened on January 5, 2009, Barack Obama was elected with 365 votes, as was Biden. If one Member and one Senator had objected, then an investigation into qualifications would have followed, but this did not happen.
If, after this procedure, the office of President falls vacant, the legally electted VP takes over.