Donofrio v. Wells

Numerous lawsuits and ballot challenges, based on conspiracy theories related to Barack Obama's eligibility for the United States presidency, have been filed since 2008. These actions have sought to have Obama disqualified from running for, or being confirmed for, the Presidency of the United States, to declare his actions in office to be null and void, or to compel him to release additional documentation related to his U.S. citizenship.

By early 2012, dozens of lawsuits had been filed challenging Obama's eligibility in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Connecticut, New Jersey, Texas and Washington. No suit or challenge has resulted in the grant of any relief to the plaintiffs by any court or other body.

A major obstacle to most citizen suits has been lack of standing. In the initial wave of lawsuits challenging the validity of the 2008 presidential election, the only plaintiff who was a presidential candidate or presidential elector was Alan Keyes. The importance of the doctrine of standing was explained by Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in dismissing one suit. He noted that one of the principal aims of the doctrine is to prevent courts from deciding questions "where the harm is too vague." This was especially true for a presidential election, where a disgruntled voter who suffered no individual harm "would have us derail the democratic process by invalidating a candidate for whom millions of people voted and who underwent excessive vetting during what was one of the most hotly contested presidential primary in living memory."

Joseph Farah said via his WorldNetDaily (WND) publication that Obama has decided "to spend sums estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid releasing a state birth certificate that would put to rest all of the questions."WND has since upped the claimed expenditure to $1.7 million, on the basis of the Obama presidential campaign paying out that much since the election to the law firm of Perkins Coie. However, as Mother Jones magazine has said, the campaign has had to employ lawyers to wind down its post-election operations and meet campaign finance law requirements. At least one attorney representing Obama in the litigation has stated that he is working without pay. Other attorneys interviewed by Mother Jones have stated that these lawsuits have been so weak that they have been easily resolved with "extremely minimal" monetary costs.

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