Procedure is very important in election law because it protects democracy. An election challenge must be filed before the ballots are printed, so that, if a candidate is ineligible, he can be removed and replaced by another candidate before the ballots are cast. Otherwise, if a candidate is declared ineligible afte rthe election, the voters are robbed of their ability to choose the candidate they want.
It doesn't protect democracy when it creates results such as we have now.
An election challenge must be filed before the ballots are printed, so that, if a candidate is ineligible, he can be removed and replaced by another candidate before the ballots are cast. Otherwise, if a candidate is declared ineligible after the election, the voters are robbed of their ability to choose the candidate they want.
If they were robbed, it was by the actions of the ineligible candidate in hiding his lack of eligibility. They were robbed in the primary, just as were we Republicans when we nominated John McCain without the knowledge of his eligibility issue.
Had the public been aware of John McCain's birth in Panama, they might have chosen someone else, (though I can't imagine who) and the other choice would have been able to challenge Obama's eligibility without worrying that the tactic would hurt him worse than Obama.