That is the closest thing to an actual legitimate question raised by the whole "Birther" circus.
Going back to original intent, it would seem that the Founders expected the electors to satisfy themselves that the candidate they were voting for was in fact eligible, and that the Congress would confirm the eligibility of the electoral vote recipients when the votes were counted before a joint session of Congress.
The secretary of state of Cal was responsible to put qualified candidates on the state primary ballot. Twice in the past the SoS of Cal removed candidates after their BC’s showed they were not qualified. There is no better way to review the age and natural born qualification than to review the BC. It is non-sensical to conclude that the constitution cannot be enforced by people who’s positions have assigned them to that responsibility and who have taken oaths to supoport and defend the constitution.
Exactly. In additon, the Founders left to each state the option to set its own rules with respect to the ballot and voting, including the procedure for a candidate to get his or name on the ballot and the process for challenging the qualifications of a candidate. In my state, the procedure is both administrative and judical: An opposing candidate or political party first petitions the Elections Commission to block or remove a candidiate from the ballot for any number of reasons, including residency, errors on the nominating petition, or other irregularities, and if the Elections Commission refuses to act, the aggrieved person can then commence a legal action to review the administrative determination under a number of statutory grounds. The time to commence such a challenge is extremely short and the administrative and judical review is expedited to ensure that the matter is resolved prior to the election. After that, the remedy is political, not judicial.
Perhaps, but these days most electors have no choice but to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged. Most people don't have a clue which electors they even voted for. It's not on the ballot in most states. They were supposed to be "pillar of the community" types, not unknown political hacks. Even when I voted in a state that did put their names on the ballot, I didn't recognize any of them. Despite having grown up there and those being my 1st and 2nd Presidential elections. ('72 and '76), I voted for electors for Nixon and Ford respectively.