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Old 01-02-2016, 14:52   #11
Damien
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Re: US Election 2016

Quote:
Originally Posted by heero_yuy View Post
I thought you had to be American born to run for president? IIRC it's why Arnie can't run 'cos he's Austrian.
The fun part of this is that it's another case of their constitution being a mess and the Founding Fathers' failure to be specific.

The line that forbids non 'American-born' citizens from becoming President is this:

Quote:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
The problem is that there is no actual definition of what is meant by natural born Citizen. Does it mean they were born as an American citizen or that they were born in America (anyone born in America has US citizenship)? Whilst logically we would say 'well, either' that isn't actually watertight.

So Ted Cruz who was born in Canada to American parents and had American citizenship at birth (via his parents) might not be eligible to run. Donald Trump keeps saying this and whilst we all suspect the Supreme Court would find he is eligible to run the Republicans are a bit concerned he could be subjected to court challenges should they nominate him from either Trump, the Democrats or some nut-job.

It's almost bound to be challenged and cause chaos all because the term has never been defined properly leaving political opponents the ambiguity they need.
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