this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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If he's disqualified for the office, those ballots will be void.
You can write in Arnold Schwarzenegger and he could get a majority, but those votes would all be void, since he is not a natural-born citizen.
What's the saying that the Republicans love so much?
The US is not a democracy, it's a constitutional republic.
There is only one way to peacefully change the constitution - and that's through an amendment.
The naturalization clause of the constitution for presidential eligibility has never been tested, and actually is quite a complex interpretation, so it’s not absolute to say Arnie would be ineligible.
It is absolute. Look at all the nonsense over Obama's birth certificate, it absolutely is a hard requirement.
So how was John McCain not hassled for being born in PCZ and not getting citizenship until he was 11 months?
How was Canadian and famed Zodiac Killer Tedward Cruz able to run in 2016 without issue?
was racism.
But they were. The difference w/ Obama and Cruz was Trump.
Just because it wasn't plastered all over the media (and it kind of was) has nothing to do with whether it was a big issue. They have to get their candidacy approved by numerous bodies, and meeting the minimum requirements (age and citizenship) is absolutely part of that.
The interpretation most use is this:
If you are born to an American parent, you are legally a US citizen unless you renounce, even if you don't do the paperwork until later. That was true for McCain, Obama, and Cruz, and it'll be true for the next candidate that runs, provided they were born to at least one American parent. That's how the law has been consistently interpreted.
Natural born.
McCain wasn't granted citizenship until a 1937 act of congress, and never had to produce a long-form birth certificate nor argue what "natural born" means in court.
The trouble Obama was given was racism, not the application of a "hard and fast" rule.
Yes, and natural born has been interpreted as being either born to a US citizen or born on US soil. One of those is sufficient.
By whom? Has it been tested?
Where are you getting the "hard and fast" descriptor when 'natural born' is not defined in the statute.
My second link (the Guardian) makes the claim, and my third link (Harvard Law Review, linked by the Guardian) provides one such piece of evidence to back that claim.
Almost nothing is "hard and fast" in law, especially where politics is involved, but given that we've had three high profile cases in the last 15 years and no serious Supreme Court-level challenge, I'm going to consider the "question" as mere political posturing.
Yes, the "natural born citizen" clause in a hard requirement in the Constitution, how that's interpreted does have some room for debate. It seems you're intentionally misunderstanding what I'm saying...
It seems you're saying diametrically contradictory things.
You say things are absolutely hard and when soft edges are pointed out you then say "nothing is hard".
I was talking about two distinct things, yet you conflate them.
It's the same thing:
if "natural born" is a hard requirement despite never being defined or tested.
You said it was a hard requirement, I pointed to evidence of the rules being murky unclear and in many ways arbitrary to which you responded that nothing was hard.
On having that contradiction pointed out you now claim to be arguing two to more things.
To be more clear, here's the relevant text of the Constitution:
That is the set of hard and fast requirements to hold the office of President.
The definition of natural born citizen is somewhat debated, but the general consensus is that it includes:
There are more links there to show the general consensus. But since it hasn't been tried in higher courts, the definition isn't "hard and fast," but the requirement to be a natural born citizen absolutely is. Those are the two different things, the requirement is hard and fast, and the specific definition of the requirement isn't, and probably won't be even if it is tried in higher courts because there's always going to be some exception to whatever definition is provided.
It's like saying murder being against the law is a hard and fast rule, but the specific definition of murder could be subject to debate (i.e. one person's self-defense could be considered murder, and vice versa). The definition can have some flux while the law that uses those terms can be strict.
A requirement can't be strict if its own definition isn't.
Yes it can, that's literally the entire basis of constitutional law. We can bicker about the interpretation of the words, but the words themselves aren't subject to change, and we make the requirement more strict through case law. That's the whole reason we separate the legislature from the judiciary, the legislature create the laws, and the judiciary defines the edges of the interpretation of those laws.
If there's a strict requirement that candidates be "scrombled" but no definition of what scrombled means, it never gets tested, and the only guy challenged on it is as a proxy for his being Black, there isn't any hard rule at all.
Rules can only be strict if they have established parameters.
There are no defined parameters for "natural born".
Could argue it only applies to clones.
But they do. The agencies that monitor such things have policies, and those are the defacto parameters until someone challenges them and we get a court ruling. That's how things work in government, the legislative branch passes a law, the executive interprets the law, and the judicial branch hears cases when people disagree with the executive branch's interpretation of the law.
What are the policies for what "natural born" means?
If there were clear parameters as you claim why did McCain supporters have to bother with Senate Resolution 511?
The resolution was made to prevent a legal challenge. Policy is not law, it's policy, and policies can be challenged in the courts. So to avoid a potentially drawn out legal challenge, the Senate clarified their understanding of the law to avoid the whole thing.
They probably didn't need to make the resolution in order to allow McCain to run, and the judicial branch likely would've found that McCain was, in fact, eligible, such a legal suit could stall or change (i.e. in the court of public opinion) election results, hence the resolution.
Why would they fear a challenge if the parameters were clear as you say?
Why wouldn't they? Even something that seems like an open and shut case can take months or even years in court to resolve. That takes time away from campaigning, as well as likely reduced support for the accused. It's the same idea as a smear campaign.
So to avoid drama, they made that resolution so his candidacy wouldn't be questioned.
So there aren't clear parameters.
There are. We're going in circles at this point.
Congrats on missing the point.
Also
So did you miss the part where I started the statement with “Should amend”?
So everyone gets a ballot with their social security number on it or something?
I know you jest, but chill dude. Not every reply is an attack.
I was with you, but you completely lost me here. It's also the most bizarre place to rush in and take a side. There's some interesting points being made about whether your vote should have legal consequences, about what it means to be it be disqualified as a candidate versus whether that should manifest in the act of voting.
And, of all the subjects, you're choosing to weigh in in favor of the idea that people should have a blank check to misinterpret statements without correction.
Maybe it's the philosophy major in me, but this degree of casual disregard for truth, and viewing other people's desire for truth as an unwarranted overreaction, it leaves an awfully bitter taste. I go back and forth on how I feel about Lemmy as an offer of hope and improvement upon Reddit, and this is a moment where my optimism fades.
If you are not jesting and seriously want to void the secrecy of the ballot and criminalize the act of voting...
Then you are as much a threat to democracy and the constitution as Trump is and I really wouldn't mind if you went back to reddit and stayed there.
Not every jest requires a educational response. I’m still pretty sure you missed the point.
edit:
This seems like a question from someone completely unfamiliar with how some people in some states, such as felons, lose their right to vote, and not only can it be tracked, but some of them have been sent back to jail for voting even though they didn’t know they weren’t allowed to vote.
Do I agree with that last part? Depends on the felon and the felony, but the point in this reply is that you don’t need ballots with social security numbers for such enforcement.
Writing in a candidate is still anonymous and should stay so.
Not in every state. Hawaii and other states send you a ballot with a unique number, associated with your voter registration, so you can track if your vote was counted properly, and for election officials to enforce various measures (as well as possible) like preventing someone from voting twice.
Anyway, since it apparently needs explaining for you, the point of my original comment is that if someone casts a write-in vote for a convicted insurrectionist, who was removed from their ballot because the state or country judged the candidate guilty of insurrection activity to overthrow the government, then that voter should be considered complicit in or supportive of insurrection activity, and similarly disqualified from voting for a period of time.
This is a personal opinion of something that will probably never happen, even though entirely possible, so since you’ve already identified it as a jest, take your own advice and chill about it.
I’m done here.
They'll generally have a 2 envelope scheme if things are marked with a serial number. One envelope to track that you voted that contains a sealed envelope with your votes. Its unlawful to open the second envelope until they're unable to tell whose vote it is. Sure, you could figure out who someone voted for, but you are not allowed to.
And since we’re talking about a proposed measure that will likely never come to pass, we can also imagine that if such an amendment were to be made, it could include a loophole allowing for ballots casting votes for disqualified insurrectionists to be investigated to find out who those voters are. Really not that big of a leap.
Goddamn y’all are exhausting.