Sixty-six million people voted for him Nov. 4. This week Congress met and tallied up the votes from the Electoral College. On Jan. 20, the nation's 44th president will take the oath of office.
But even after the inaugural bunting comes down, Eastside lawyer Stephen Pidgeon will still be asking: Does Barack Obama meet the Constitutional qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief?
Pidgeon filed suit on behalf of 13 Washington voters last month against Secretary of State Sam Reed, alleging that the state has not reconciled conflicting accounts about the president-elect's origins. He questions the authenticity of a Hawaiian birth certificate and offers statements by Obama family members that the president-elect was born in his father's home country, Kenya.
"We're saying he's failed to establish natural born citizenship," says Pidgeon of his case, which will be considered Jan. 8 by the Washington State Supreme Court.
Despite a rebuttal by the Obama campaign and the verification of the birth certificate by the nonpartisan group Factcheck.org, Pidgeon says no documents have been produced that meet legal muster. He says if the state Supreme Court denies his bid, he'll take this case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A nationwide chorus of conservative activists has challenged Obama's qualifications for office on grounds that he has not disproven statements about his African birthplace, nor disclosed the legal name given to him by his Indonesian stepfather. The nation's highest court has declined to hear at least seven similar cases already, according to the Associated Press. Justice Anthony Kennedy last month declined to consider a challenge to Obama's claim to natural-born citizenship on the grounds that his father was a foreigner.
Unlike other cases, Pidgeon's suit invokes a state law that permits any
voters to challenge the election of an official believed to be unqualified.
"We've asked the state, 'Give us the authority to get this birth certificate,'" he says. "If we get it, maybe this whole thing goes away."
Elections staff reply that their office can't do anything.
"We have neither the authority nor the ability" to ask the Hawaii Department of Health for the birth record, says David Ammons, communications director for the Secretary of State's office. To qualify a candidate's name for the ballot, the nominating parties "send us paperwork notifying us of the nominees," he says. "The statute says they're nominated, period."
During election season Real Change contributing writer Sean Hughes encountered the Secretary of State's nominating procedure when he noted that two minor-party presidential candidates had citizenship and age barriers that would have disqualified them from holding the office. Hughes asked state officials how candidates qualified for the ballot; to clarify, one elections official stated in an e-mail that "Getting on the ballot is one thing. Being able to take office, if elected, is another. If a candidate wins election, these issues [age or citizenship] could have relevance in determining if the candidate is eligible to take office."
Describing himself as a Christian who is "farther to the right than the whacky far right," Pidgeon says he's not trying to alter the election results. Rather, "Our goal is to support the Constitution.
"Some of my clients are veterans; they are very upset, having risked their lives defending the Constitution, finding that no one in authority is willing to uphold it. They see our country slipping away."
Even if the state court doesn't agree to pursue the subject Jan. 8, Pidgeon says he will persevere.
Despite the looming inauguration, "this case will never be moot [sic], the issue of his eligibility will always be out there," he says. "Everything he does during his presidency will be illegal, all things he does will be defective as a matter of law."