DECISION
Plaintiffs allege that Defendant President Barack Obama does not meet Georgia’s eligibility requirements for candidacy in Georgia’s 2012 presidential primary election. Georgia law mandates that candidates meet constitutional and statutory requirements for the office that they seek. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-5(a). Mr. Obama is a candidate for federal office who has been certified by the state executive committee of a political party, and therefore must, under Georgia Code Section 21-2-5, meet the constitutional and statutory qualifications for holding the Office of the President of the United States. Id. The United States Constitution requires that a President be a “natural born [c]itizen.” U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 5. As required by Georgia Law, Secretary of State Brian Kemp referred Plaintiffs’ challenges to this Court for a hearing. O.C.G.A. § 21-2-5(b). A hearing was held on January 26, 2012. The record closed on February 1, 2012. Plaintiffs Farrar, Lax, Judy, Malaren, and Roth and their counsel Orly Taitz, Plaintiffs Carl Swensson and Kevin Richard Powell and their counsel J. Mark Hatfield, and Plaintiff David P. Welden and his counsel Van R. Trion, all appeared and answered the call of the case. However, neither Defendant nor his counsel, Michael Jablonski, appeared or answered. Ordinarily, the Court would enter a default order against a party that fails to participate in any stage of a proceeding. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 616-1-2-.30(1) and (5). Nonetheless, despite the Defendant’s failure to appear, Plaintiffs asked this Court to decide the case on the merits of their arguments and evidence. The Court granted Plaintiffs’ request.
By deciding this matter on the merits, the Court in no way condones the conductor legal scholarship of Defendant’s attorney, Mr. Jablonski. This Decision is entirely based on the law, as well as the evidence and legal arguments presented at the hearing.
Evidentiary Arguments of Plaintiffs Farrar, et al.
Plaintiffs Farrar, Lax, Judy, Malaren, and Roth contend that President Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen. To support this contention, Plaintiffs assert that Mr. Obama maintains a fraudulently obtained social security number, a Hawaiian birth certificate that is a computer-generated forgery, and that he does not otherwise possess valid U.S. identification papers. Further, Plaintiffs submit that Mr. Obama has previously held Indonesian citizenship, and he did not use his legal name on his notice of candidacy, which is either Barry Soetoro or Barack Obama Soebarkah. (Pl.s’ Am. Compl. 3.)
At the hearing, Plaintiffs presented the testimony of eight witnesses 2 and seven exhibits in support of their position. (Exs. P-1 through P-7.) When considering the testimony and exhibits, this Court applies the same rules of evidence that apply to civil nonjury cases in superior court. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 616-1-2-.18(1)—(9). The weight to be given to any evidence shall be determined by the Court based upon its reliability and probative value. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 616-1-2-.18(10).
The Court finds the testimony of the witnesses, as well as the exhibits tendered, to be of little, if any, probative value, and thus wholly insufficient to support Plaintiffs’ allegations. 3 Ms. Taitz attempted to solicit expert testimony from several of the witnesses without qualifying or tendering the witnesses as experts. See Stephens v. State, 219 Ga. App. 881 (1996) (the unqualified testimony of the witness was not competent evidence). For example, two of Plaintiffs’ witnesses testified that Mr. Obama’s birth
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