Obama's ineligibility case thrown out by US Supreme court

Washington, Dec 9 (ANI): The US Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from a New Jersey man who says President-elect Barack Obama is ineligible to be president because he was a British subject at birth.

The court did not comment on its order on Monday rejecting the call by Leo Donofrio of East Brunswick, N.J., to intervene in the presidential election.

Donofrio says that since Obama had dual nationality at birth -- his mother was American and his Kenyan father at the time was a British subject -- he cannot possibly be a "natural born citizen," one of the requirements of the Constitution for eligibility to be president.

"This is the least surprising move by the Supreme Court in years. No serious legal scholar believed that the Justices would take the case and overturn the election," said CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen.

Donofrio also contends that two other candidates, Republican John McCain and Socialist Workers candidate Roger Calero, also are not natural-born citizens and thus ineligible to be president.

At least one other appeal over Obama's citizenship remains at the court. Philip J. Berg argues that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as Obama says and the Hawaii secretary of state has confirmed.

Berg says Obama also may be a citizen of Indonesia, where he lived as a boy. Federal courts in Pennsylvania have dismissed Berg's lawsuit, CBS News reported.

Federal courts in Ohio and Washington State have rejected similar lawsuits.

Allegations raised on the Internet say the birth certificate, showing that Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, is a fake.

But state officials in Hawaii say they checked health department records and have determined there is no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii. (ANI)