If before the election Obama and Mccain both turn out to not be valid citizens would it be Palin versus Biden..

If after the inauguration of McCain or Obama  and then it is proven their birth certificate is fraud , what happens?

persons born overseas to parents who are US citizens are US citizens.  Doesn't matter where McCain was born, as both his parents were US citizens at the time of his birth [in the Panama canal Zone?].Obama US citizenship derives from that of his mother,who probably was smart enough to hit the nearest US consulate and fill out the paperwork attesting to that.

to run for POTUS, you not only have to be a US citizen, you have to have been born IN THE UNITED STATES.

Frankly, I think this would have been nailed down before these guys ran.

-- Modified on 10/22/2008 10:18:37 PM

Didn't the Supremes rule on this a long time ago?
I seem to remember something about being born under the US Flag. In any evenyt, something like this would have had to come out at the very beginning of the game... for it to be overlooked by EVERYBODY until this late stage is simply ludicrous and unrealistic.
The US Government may be overrun with incompetence and corruption, but come on... they are NOT THAT STUPID!!!!

Jeez

I have to think "in the United States" is meant to refer  to native born US citizen as opposed to naturalized US citizens. There must be a case on this somewhere.  I cannot imagine that if Obama was not qualified to be prez by virtue of  birth outside of US jurisdictions, that the GOP would not have been all over it like Reggie Bush on Kim Kardashian.

US Constitution/Article II/Section 1/Clause 5 states "No Person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President.."  Which is not the same as requiring that a person be physically born in the US.

Where the hell was Obama born anyway?  There's no idication that in all the time he lived abroad, his folks considered him anythiong except a US citizen, or that he did not consider himself a US citizen.  His dad's Kenyan citizenship clouds the issue, such as it is, but really, can this be the October Surprise we're expecting?  Going to federal court to declare Senator Obama a non-US citizen?

The Constitution does not say "born in the United States."  It says a "natural born" citizen.

This means a person who at birth was born a citizen.  A person can be a natural born citizen even if he is born overseas.

Think:  When a U.S. couple is working in France and has a baby, when they return to the U.S., that baby never goes through naturalization. NEVER. That baby has always been a U.S. citizen without immigration. It has always been considered to be a "natural born" citizen.  When that baby grows up and gets a passport, he gets a U.S. passport, that says U.S. citizen.

This is particularly true of U.S. military personel, who are on U.S. property overseas.  there are a lot of places overseas that are U.S. property and part of the U.S. (The cemetary at Normandy was given to the U.S. in perpetuity.) A military base is U.S. territory for the time the military occupies it.  That is why crimes committed on a military base in Italy are proscuted under U.S. law.

The reason for this is that even when Americans are overseas, they are Americans and subject to U.S. law.  That is why the U.S. can penalize actions of citizens over seas. For example, American citizens cannot bribe a foreign official, even though it may be legal where the bribe occurs.  The U.S. citizen is still subject to the laws of the U.S.

To say that someone has to be born in the U.S. incorrectly states the law and has no understanding of the term "natural born."

HIs mother didn't need to go to a US consulate since he was born in Honolulu. This just in people: Hawaii is part of the United States.