On August 16, the New Jersey State Supreme Court refused to hear Ayyadurai v New Jersey State Democratic Committee. This is the lawsuit filed by independent presidential candidate Shiva Ayyadurai to get on the ballot. He has enough valid signatures but he is being barred because he was born in India, although he has lived in the United States since the age of seven.
Here is his fiing, which argues several points, including the fact that the true candidates are presidential elector candidates and they are qualified; and New Jersey precedent, in which five times in the past, New Jersey did print the names of minor party or independent candidates for president or vice-president on the ballot even though they were under age 35. There are other arguments as well.
A few years ago, Shiva ran against Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts for US Senator. His campaign touted the fact that he is a REAL Indian, not a fake one.
What is the rule on that, btw? If you are born in a foreign country, but to American citizens, you are automatically a US citizen, correct? Why would they not be allowed to run for president? Or do you literally have to be born on US soil such as embassy land? What if your mom was on vacation and had an early birth. Would that disqualify you for running for president because you were technically born on foreign land? Cenk Uygur was born to American citizens, so I think he was born as a US citizen, but people were saying he couldn’t run for president because he was born in Turkey. Which is it?
They were all not “natural born” killers. See Macbeth: no person born by Caesarean section can be on the ballot.
If voters file the lawsuit instead, will the court hear it? I think he should try that.
@Thecommander Jeff
“If you are born in a foreign country, but to American citizens, you are automatically a US citizen, correct?”
A citizen yes, but not a natural born citizen.
“Why would they not be allowed to run for president?”
President and vice-president require you to be a natural born citizen.
“Or do you literally have to be born on US soil such as embassy land?”
Yes, exactly.
“What if your mom was on vacation and had an early birth. Would that disqualify you for running for president because you were technically born on foreign land?”
Yes, it would. It can get very technical. Take John McCain for example, whose parents were at Coco Solo base in the Panama Canal Zone, which was recognized as US soil. But his mother delivered him at a hospital outside of the Panama Canal Zone. As a result John McCain was ineligible to be president.
“Cenk Uygur was born to American citizens, so I think he was born as a US citizen, but people were saying he couldn’t run for president because he was born in Turkey. Which is it?”
I don’t know where he was born, but if it was not US soil then he is ineligible, just like Chester Arthur, Barack Obama, John McCain, Kamala Harris and Shiva Ayyadurai, etc.
KID OF USA CITIZEN FATHER = NBC
PLACE OF BIRTH MEANS ZERO
Birther bullshit aside, the law as currently interpreted by the courts – which is the only kind that matters – is that citizens born of US citizen parents abroad are natural born citizens and eligible to run for president of the US. Anyone born in the US is also a natural born citizen regardless of the citizenship of their parents, again as the law is currently interpreted by the courts.
When I say birther bullshit, I don’t mean they are incorrect as far as the original intent of the law. I think they are probably correct. But I don’t care. The only kind of law that matters is the kind that’s enforced, rightly or wrongly.
The current interpreted/enforced law only recognizes two kinds of US citizens: natural born and naturalized. Naturalized citizens are those who are born solely with the citizenship of other nation(s)
and then become US citizens through an application process. Nobody who is born in the US or of US citizen parents abroad has to go through an application process to become a US citizen.
Therefore, Chester Arthur, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and John McCain are natural born US Citizens. Shiva Ayyadurai and Cenk Uygur are not. Original intent of the law and wishful thinking won’t change this. Only the courts or congress + presidential signature + new law not being thrown out by courts can change that. Neither of those methods of changing the law look likely in the foreseeable future.
Brothers will supply an endless amount of bullshit to get around these simple facts.
Birthers, nor brothers. Damn automangle.
That being said, Richard Winger is correct: there is plenty of precedent, including in NJ, of clearly ineligible candidates being allowed on presidential ballots. The argument that the true candidates are electors has also been known to work, although less consistently since 2012.
The age at which Ayyudarai immigrated, however, is completely irrelevant. I don’t know of a single precedent that says a naturalized citizen who was naturalized as a child is any different than one who was naturalized as an adult as far as Presidential eligibility. He can still be on the ballot for president at least in some States, but can’t actually become president.
@AZ @Sane moron, not a troll
You both present a simplified version of the rules by which citizenship is inherent or acquired at birth. For example, it doesn’t have to be the father who is a US citizen; age of immigrating can be relevant; marital status of parents matters; the amount of time the US citizen parent has spent residing in the US can also be critical. For niche cases, it gets very complex. See Title 8 Chapter 12 Subchapter III Part 1 of the US Code of Law (Part 2 deals with citizenship acquired after birth).
But the most important thing, is that not everyone who is a US citizen at birth is a natural born citizen. Those are two completely different things. In fact, the US Code doesn’t define natural born citizens at all. But a natural born citizen is a much stricter, more limited term: they have to have at least one US citizen parent (it doesn’t have to be the father) AND they have to be born on US soil (which can include embassies, consulates, ships, planes, military bases, etc.).
I also want to set the record straight about the reason why the aforementioned candidates were/are ineligible, because there is a lot of misinformation being spread in attempt to discredit legitimate concerns:
Chester Arthur was born in the US (not in Ireland or Canada, as is sometimes claimed) to an Irish father and an American mother. At that time, it was still a requirement that the father specifically be a US citizen at the time of birth for the child to be a natural born citizen.
Chester Arthur’s father was not naturalized until after Chester’s birth, thus even though he was born in the US, Chester Arthur was not a natural born citizen. If he had been born today, that would no longer be an issue, because he could inherit American citizenship from his mother, but that was not yet the case at the time.
John McCain was born to two US citizen parents, but he was born in a Panamanian hospital outside of the Panama Canal Zone (not at Coco Solo as was later claimed). He was therefore a citizen at birth (not by virtue of being bestowed citizenship at 11 months of age, as has been claimed) due to his parents, but not a natural born citizen due to his place of birth.
Barack Obama was born to a Kenyan father and an American mother out of wedlock. It is unclear whether he was born before or after they pretended to get married, but since the father was already married at the time, such sham marriage would have been legally void anyway due to bigamy laws.
It is also not clear where Obama was born (Kenya? Hawaii? Indonesia?) because he has never provided a legitimate birth certificate. The only certificate he ever did provide was found by forensics experts to have been edited.
So Obama may in fact be a natural born citizen, but it seems unlikely given the amount of effort he has put into obscuring his place and date of birth.
Kamala Harris was born in the US to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. Neither of her parents were naturalized US citizens yet at the time of her birth, thus she is a US citizen because she was born here, but not a natural born citizen.
Shiva Ayyadurai was born in India to an Indian father and an Indian mother, then naturalized as a US citizen at a young age.
You can tout your theories all day every day. Court precedents and which candidates had their electoral votes counted by congress establish the precedent on who is or isn’t eligible. Actions speak louder than words.
What I said above is based on actual legal precedent, whether you like it or not. Just like you are a troll despite claiming not to be, as evidenced by your extreme rudeness and indifference towards facts.
If you wanted to dismiss matters of eligibility, you should have pushed through Claire McCaskill’s constitutional amendment on the matter, but you failed to do so. Therefore it continues to be an important legal matter regardless of what legally impotent and meaningless “senate resolutions” get passed on the matter, or what fake electoral votes anti-constitutional traitors pretend to count.
I’m just going by which electoral votes were counted, and additionally which candidates took the oath and served in that office such as Arthur and Obama. If anyone is trolling, rude, or indifferent to facts here, it’s not me.
@Insane moron, rude troll
Making wildly inaccurate bullshit up as you did at 11:09 and 11:17, and referring to that as “simple facts” while calling actual facts bullshit, is rude, trolling and indifferent towards facts. So yes, it is exactly you who are trolling, rude and indifferent to facts.
You misidentified the time stamps of your comments, but otherwise are correct. Who took the oath of office and served, and who had electors counted by congress and would have taken the oath and served, are verifiable facts. Simple facts are simple facts, no matter how much you don’t like it. Arthur, Obama and Harris have taken the oath of office and served (VP counts for this purpose). Therefore, they are natural born citizens as the laws interpreted by the courts and enforced in real life stand. QED.