SYDNEY, Australia — Just one line in Australia’s Constitution states that dual citizens are ineligible to serve in Parliament, but that brief provision has led nine lawmakers to resign — including the deputy prime minister.

And now, Australia’s democracy is essentially paralyzed, or at least hobbled.

Parliament was supposed to be in session this week, focused on same-sex marriage legislation. Instead, the government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has delayed the meeting until next week, giving lawmakers in the House of Representatives until Dec. 5 to turn in documentation to prove their citizenship status.

Many Australians have responded with anger and eye-rolling; faith in democracy is declining in this country along with Mr. Turnbull’s poll numbers. But legal scholars have been asking more elemental questions: How might this mess have been avoided? And how can it be fixed?

Here are a few possibilities:

Fix the form?

Arjuna Dibley, an Australian doctoral student at Stanford University Law School, has proposed a nomination form that would ask questions about where the parents of a potential political candidate were born.