SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 18 (UPI) -- A San Francisco judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Republican candidate John McCain's inclusion on the California ballot due to citizenship questions.
Northern District of California Judge William Alsup ruled that McCain's claim of U.S. citizenship is strong enough to keep him on the ballot, the Legal Times reported Thursday.
The suit was the third challenge claiming that McCain's birthplace in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 disqualifies him under the Constitution to be president of the United States.
Alsup said a review of statutes, including one passed in 1937 on Canal Zone citizenship, found that "persons in Senator McCain's circumstances are citizens by virtue of their birth, thereby retroactively rendering Senator McCain a natural born citizen, if he was not one already."
The judge also ruled Tuesday that the plaintiff had no standing to challenge McCain's placement on the ballot.
However, Alsup did say procedures challenging a candidate's qualifications under the 12th and 20th Amendments are available when electoral votes are counted, the publication said.
"Judicial review -- if any -- should occur only after the electoral and congressional processes have run their course," the judge's ruling said.
