# What happens if the "Birthers" uncovered proof. Who would become president? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2013, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-the-birthers-uncovered-proof-who-would-become-president/666344 "2013-08-15T20:04:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-the-birthers-uncovered-proof-who-would-become-president/666344/41 "2013-08-16T05:30:06Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Would the Obama administration’s legions of lawyers be able to delay a decision being made until the end of Obama’s term of office? > > Would it be shown that since Obama and the democratic party could not have known that the records had been tampered with, therefore he acted in “good faith” in becoming a presidential candidate, and therefore the election was valid? (conversely, suppose someone told him that the records had been tampered with, but he only had their word for it and no definite proof?) > > Under what possibly scenario could Mitt Romney be awarded the presidency? Would his term of office start retroactively last January or when he took office… > > Obviously, there’s a lot of ways it could go, I’m curious as to what the most likely scenario would be and why. My suspicion is that it would not result in the “Birthers” desired outcome of a Republican president immediately taking power. Most likely IMHO? Obama would resign in favor of Biden regardless of whether impeachment was threatened. If people think that the Republicans are being obstructionist now, just imagine how bad it would be if they were realistically able to claim that he has no authority do do anything but empty wastebaskets. I expect there would even be some moderate Democrats who wouldn’t want to give the impression they were supporting fraud upon the US. Biden would be seriously hampered in anything he tried to accomplish, but Obama would be completely hamstrung. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-the-birthers-uncovered-proof-who-would-become-president/666344/42 "2013-08-16T05:55:59Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > Most likely IMHO? Obama would resign in favor of Biden regardless of whether impeachment was threatened. Very, very likely. If you remember when Nixon was embroiled in Watergate, everything else pretty much went on the back burner with respect to governing the country. He resigned when he did partly to avoid stretching out the agony any longer, even though he _could_ have continued the legal battle (which he certainly would have lost) to the bitter end. I doubt Obama would want to taint his place in history any more than was necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-the-birthers-uncovered-proof-who-would-become-president/666344/43 "2013-08-16T07:39:57Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Under what possibly scenario could Mitt Romney be awarded the presidency? Pretty much none. AFAIK these are the only ways to become the President of the United States: [ul] [li]Being elected by a majority of the electors. (Nope, that was Obama.)[/li][li]Being elected by a majority of the state delegations in the House of Representatives after there was no majority vote by the electors. (Nope, Obama got a majority, so they didn’t even vote.)[/li][li]Being elected Vice President by a majority of the electors and filling a vacancy in the presidency. (Nope, that was Biden.)[/li][li]Being elected Vice President by a majority of the Senate after there was no majority vote by the electors, and then filling a vacancy in the presidency. (Nope, the majority of the electors voted for Biden, and Romney wasn’t one of the top two vote-getters for VP anyways. That was Paul Ryan.)[/li][li]Being appointed Vice President and confirmed by the Senate and the House of Representatives, and then filling a vacancy in the presidency. (This at least isn’t _impossible_, just vastly improbable.)[/li][/ul] Other people can become the acting president, to exercise the powers of the office until there is a president\*, but sadly for Mitt Romney, he isn’t any of those people either. \*It’s been theorized that Congress could call for an early election if there wasn’t a president. When it seemed possible that Nixon would be forced out during the vacancy in the vice presidency, that possibility was floated. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-the-birthers-uncovered-proof-who-would-become-president/666344/44 "2013-08-16T14:32:57Z")
Even if you could imagine some bizarre circumstance where Romney was in the line of succession, wouldn’t he be there behind McCain anyway? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-the-birthers-uncovered-proof-who-would-become-president/666344.md?page=2)