Tony Cook

IndyStar

Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are facing challenges alleging they don’t qualify for the Indiana primary ballot because they aren’t “natural born citizens.”

The Indiana Election Commission is scheduled to take up those challenges Friday, along with the question of whether U.S. Senate candidate Todd Young submitted enough signatures to qualify for the May 3 primary ballot.

Most legal scholars agree that Cruz and Rubio meet the U.S. Constitution’s eligibility requirement. Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father, while Rubio was born in Florida to Cuban immigrants.

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But Richard Carter, an 85-year-old from Madison who usually votes in Republican primaries, argues in a one-page letter to the Indiana secretary of state that Cruz and Rubio don't meet the Constitution’s “natural born” requirement.

Carter did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Bob Kern, a perpetual candidate for Congress and convicted felon, is also challenging Cruz’s candidacy.

“If he wants to be president," Kern said in a phone interview, "he should run in Canada."

Cruz’s eligibility has become a major talking point on the national campaign trail, largely thanks to Republican front-runner Donald Trump. The billionaire real estate mogul and reality TV star has questioned Cruz's eligibility because he was born in Canada.

The challenge by Kern, a Democrat who is also a Trump supporter, has an interesting twist. Formerly known as Bobby Hidalgo, he changed his name to Bob Kern on a 1998 congressional primary filing and cruised to victory over the party’s preferred candidate, R. Nagarajan. Party leaders bemoaned Kern’s victory, attributing it to voter apprehension about foreign-sounding names. Kern lost to Republican incumbent Dan Burton by more than 50 percentage points.

Cruz’s campaign did not return messages from IndyStar, but the senator from Texas has adamantly defended his eligibility. The Illinois election board recently dismissed a challenge similar to the one in Indiana.

Rubio’s campaign has also successfully defended the Florida senator's eligibility in other states.

“It’s like Donald Trump invaded our state,” said Tom John, co-chairman of Rubio’s Indiana campaign. “Nobody disputes Marco was born in Florida.”

John, a former Marion County GOP chairman, filed a 25-page brief with the election commission on Thursday defending Rubio’s eligibility. It argues that Rubio is a natural born citizen regardless of his parents' immigration status because he was born in the United States.

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"The challenger’s contentions are incorrect as basic matters of law," the brief says, "and entertaining the challenger’s argument would jeopardize centuries of precedent and deem at least six former presidents ineligible for office, Marco Rubio is a natural born citizen of the United States and he is eligible to be president of the United States."

This year’s challenges to Cruz and Rubio are not the first of their kind.

President Barack Obama, whose father is African, faced similar challenges in Indiana in 2012. The election commission rejected them.

The commission will also deal with several other challenges when it meets at 1:30 p.m.

The most contentious involves Young, one of two Republicans seeking to replace U.S. Sen. Dan Coats, who is not seeking re-election. He faces a challenge from Indiana Democratic Party Chairman John Zody and from the campaign of his primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman.

They contend that Young failed to collect the required 500 signatures from registered voters in Indiana’s heavily Democratic 1st Congressional District.

IndyStar and other media outlets counted the signatures and found only 497.

Young’s campaign, however, is likely to argue that some of the signatures that county clerks did not verify should have been counted.

Young’s team also will have to fend off several other challenges from Democrats, who want some of his petitions thrown out because signature gatherers didn’t date them or include their addresses.

Several candidates for Congress and the Indiana General Assembly are also facing challenges over their party affiliation or the way they requested their names to appear on the ballot.

Call IndyStar reporter Tony Cook at (317) 444-6081. Follow him on Twitter: @indystartony.