President Obama's Kansas ballot placement is in jeopardy of being removed by a GOP-controlled State Objections Board after a Manhattan, Kansas man filled an objection against the validity of his citizenship. According to USA Today, the board met on Thursday to discuss the complaint but delayed the decision until Monday.
Three of Kansas' top Republican elected officials are in charge with reviewing the complaint filed by Joe Montgomery, who believes that Obama does not meet the citizenship criteria to be on the ballot, HuffPost Politics reported. According to HuffPost Politics, Montgomery states that Obama's father's Kenyan and British citizenship bar him from running for re-election.
In the objection, filed on Monday, Montgomery wrote:
"Barack Obama, according to multiple sources, was not born to a citizen father. His father was never even admitted to this country as a resident alien. Barack Obama Sr. retained his British and Kenyan citizenship and passed them onto his son, which Mr. Obama has publicly claimed on his Fight the Smears website. The Supreme Court specified that natural-born citizenship inherently excludes dual citizenship through a citation in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (which was citing U.S. v Rhodes, noting that one could only be a British subject or a natural-born citizen, and not hold both citizenships): All persons born in the allegiance of the King are natural-born subjects, and all persons born in the allegiance of the United States are natural-born citizens."
The board, which consists of Secretary of State Kris Kobach, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and Attorney General Derek Schmidt, dismissed an earlier objection to the president's ballot placement in April but were giving serious consideration to the latest complaint.
Kobach told the Topeka Capital-Journal, "I don't think it's a frivolous objection. I do think the factual record could be supplemented."
Montgomery also accused the President of failing to justify his citizenship and said that the birth certificated provided by the White House in August 2011 was "doctored," HuffPost Politics reported.
This is not the first instance Obama has had to deal with questions regarding his birthplace and legitimacy of his birth certificate. According to USA Today, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett considered removing him from the Arizona state ballot but was forced to back down after receiving information from Hawaii.
If Obama is removed from the ballot in Kansas, it could prove to be a major blow to his re-election campaign. USA Today reported that his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and his grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, were all born there.