I would like to side with the author of the letter Offering of vote mocks electoral process . He listed some rather serious reasons for his comments and his points are valid. I must add, as a fellow US citizen, that Erik Ossemig's action is something of a ridiculous stunt.

It also appears that as an ex-US Army serviceman, he never learned about why he was in 'This man's army' in the first place. He can willingly toss away his voting right that so many of his fellow servicemen died for or suffered injuries in order to protect. This is his right, but is a most shameful act.

I am also disappointed in malaysiakini for helping promote this stunt. I have thought for several years that malaysiakini was dedicated to serious news about Malaysian politics and to the efforts of Malaysians to have an alternate press that touched on issues the mainstream press would not approach.

I paid a fee to read about this stunt - a foolish stunt by an ex-serviceman from the US who cannot understand his own constitution, a document he agreed to protect as a US serviceman. The US Constitution does not require its president be born on US soil. The exact wording in the US Constitution on who can be president is in Article Two, Section One, Clause Five:

'No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen years a Resident within the United States.'

The document is rather clever with the requirement that the US President must have 14 years' residence in the US. This requirement can limit the ability of an otherwise eligible citizen to become president by 'returning from recent exile'.

I could find nothing in the US Constitution that required a condition of 'bumiputera' by way of 'natural birth on US soil' to exist in order for one to be eligible for the office of the US president. All children of US citizens, no matter where they are born in the world, are US citizens.

Those children can choose to decline US citizenship at the age of 18 years, but they are 'bumiputeras' in the eyes of the US government until then. I would not call the 14-year residency requirement a 'discrimination'.

It is no worse than the requirement that a legislative representative live in the district or state he or she represents - something some forms of democratic government do not require thus, depriving the constituents of 'purely local' representation.

Ossemig can do with his right to vote as he desires. I don't think he breaks any US law with his stunt. However, this stunt really shows how shallow some people can be and how little they remember of their country's heritage and the history that went long before them that helped build a nation.

Ossemig, with all the sharpshooter training he has had at the US government's expense, could have been more on target with his political statement. He is correct that the president of the US has unprecedented influence over the lives of the world's people. Giving away one's vote is not the best way to provide a correction to that situation.

Malaysiakini has dropped a notch or two in my eyes for providing a stage for this stunt. I expected more from the editorial board of an otherwise excellent publication that is working against big odds to accomplish a rather noble goal.

I am hopeful malaysiakini can get back on track. A simple poll of Malaysian citizens' opinions about the US presidential election would have been interesting news. Editorial comment as well, no matter if it is pro or con, is always good reading.

But this stunt is scraping the bottom of the barrel at a time when we really need something better to consider.