An appeal claiming Barack Obama is not qualified to become president of the United States because he is not a “natural born citizen” has been declined by the US Supreme Court.

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

The lawsuit claimed he should be disqualified because, it claimed, he acquired the same British citizenship that his father had when he was born.

It read: “Since Barack Obama’s father was a citizen of Kenya, and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of Senator Obama’s birth, then Senator Obama was a British citizen ‘at birth’, just like the framers of the Constitution, and therefore, even if he were to produce an original birth certificate proving he were born on US soil, he still wouldn’t be eligible to be president.”

Just to be nonpartisan about it, Donofrio also argued that Republican Sen. John McCain and Socialist Workers candidate Roger Calero also were not natural-born citizens and should have been kept off the ballot.

Mr. Obama’s birth certificate shows he was born in Hawaii.

The nonpartisan Web site Factcheck.org examined the original document and said it does have a raised seal and the usual evidence of a genuine document.

The Associated Press says at least one other appeal over Obama’s citizenship remains at the court. Philip J. Berg argues that Obama was born in Kenya, or may be a citizen of Indonesia, where he lived as a boy. Federal courts in Pennsylvania have dismissed Berg’s lawsuit. Federal courts in Ohio and Washington State have rejected related lawsuits.