#twelfth amendment

No, that's not true. Because we're dealing with the Electoral College, it's of course more complicated and confusing than that.

I'll try to explain it without getting too convoluted:

When the Electors meet to cast their votes for the Electoral College, they cast two ballots: one for President and one for Vice President. The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits an Elector from casting both of their ballots for someone whose official residence is the same state as the Elector. So, if I was a Presidential Elector, since I'm from California, one of my ballots -- for either President or Vice President -- has to go to someone whose official residence is NOT California.

In 2000, Dick Cheney had been living in Texas while working for Halliburton. When Republican Presidential nominee George W. Bush (whose official residence was obviously Texas because he was Governor) chose Cheney to be his Vice Presidential running mate, Cheney switched his official residence back to Wyoming where he had a home and which he had represented in Congress. While they both could have theoretically kept Texas as their official residences, the Presidential Electors from Texas only would have been able to cast their ballots for one of them, potentially costing their ticket 32 Electoral votes.

Note that this has to do with the President and Vice President's official state of residence, not where they were born. If a President and Vice President were both born in the same state, but had different official states of residence, the Twelfth Amendment's Electoral College restrictions would not apply. Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun were both born in South Carolina, but Jackson's official residence was Tennessee when they were elected in 1828. William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were both born in Virginia, but Harrison's official state of residence was Ohio when they were elected in 1840.

Vice President Pence Must Be Guided by the 12th Amendment, Not the Electoral Count Act, on Jan. 6

Commentary On Monday, I wrote on these pages that Vice President Mike Pence, as president of the Senate, would be violating his oath of office were he to count the electoral votes cast for Joe Biden in the six disputed swing states—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada—because the governors of those states had “certified” the Biden-pledged electors, despite a…

Harris’s father and mother were born outside of the United States — in Jamaica and India, respectively — and neither was a naturalized citizen at the time of Harris’s birth in Oakland, California. However, Eastman explained that the important question is whether Harris’s parents were lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth.

Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans A. von Spakovsky also addressed this ongoing debate in 2018.

"The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens. It says that '[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof' are citizens. That second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or misinterpreted by advocates of 'birthright' citizenship," von Spakovosky wrote. "Critics erroneously believe that anyone present in the United States has 'subjected' himself 'to the jurisdiction' of the United States, which would extend citizenship to the children of tourists, diplomats, and illegal aliens alike."

However, von Spakovosky argued, "It is just plain wrong to claim that the children born of parents temporarily in the country as students or tourists are automatically U.S. citizens: They do not meet the 14th Amendment’s jurisdictional allegiance obligations. They are, in fact, subject to the political jurisdiction (and allegiance) of the country of their parents. The same applies to the children of illegal aliens because children born in the United States to foreign citizens are citizens of their parents’ home country."

He couldn’t be Vice President at all -- not even for a few minutes. A lot of people get confused about this, but you know how the Constitution has certain requirements necessary for someone to be eligible to be President? Well, the Constitution also has eligibility requirements for the Vice Presidency.

The Constitution is very clear on this. The Twelfth Amendment explicitly states that “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States”. Since Bill Clinton is ineligible to serve as President, he’s ineligible to serve as Vice President. He wouldn’t even have a chance to be sworn in as Vice President; Congress wouldn’t certify his election because he’s Constitutionally ineligible to be VP.

Good question!

First of all, let me set the table a bit.  The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, which sets forth the process for the election of the President and Vice President (and attempts to explain the Electoral College), instructs Presidential Electors to cast a separate ballot for the President and Vice President and prohibits Electors from casting both votes for candidates who reside in the same state as the Elector.  To break that down, basically, that means that if I was an Elector, I couldn't cast my ballot for a President and Vice President who, like me, live in California.  At least one of my votes would have to go to someone residing in a different state.

Some take that to mean that the President and Vice President can't be elected if their official residency is the same state.  In actuality, they can reside in the same state, but Electoral votes are the ticket to the White House, so nobody wants to even risk the possibility of having even just one or two Electoral votes disqualified, which is what would happen if an Elector did cast ballots for a President and Vice President who both resided in the Electors state.  In 2000, Dick Cheney established Wyoming as his official residency once he was named as George W. Bush's running mate. Although Bush and Cheney both lived in Texas at the time, Cheney had a home in Wyoming, had represented Wyoming in Congress, and establishing official residences in different states protected them from any possible complications in the Electoral College.

Anyway, back to the main point of your question, yes, Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates declare their official state of residency when they seek election.  I'm not positive when or how they do it -- it could be when they file their paperwork to run, it could be as simple as it being where they are registered to vote.  I'm not sure about the particulars.  But there have been plenty of Presidents whose official state of residency was different from their state of birth.

And, since I'm here to give you as much information, as possible, whether you specifically ask for it or not, here are those Presidents:

After issues in the 1796 and 1800 Presidential elections, the Twelfth Amendment was passed and set forth the method of electing the President and Vice President that we have today.  Before 1804, the President was the candidate who received the most Electoral votes while the Vice President was the candidate who finished second in the Electoral College results, no matter what party they belonged to or what their relationship was with the President.  It didn't take long for that method to become a problem.  So, after the Twelfth Amendment was passed, the nomination of a Vice Presidential candidate became an important part of the election process and political parties recognized that nominating a Vice President required some strategic thinking.  The 1804 election was the first contested under the Twelfth Amendment and, really, ticket balance has been an important consideration of nearly every Presidential election since that time and had been for a long time when JFK chose LBJ as his running mate in 1960.   

There are many different aspects to balancing a Presidential ticket, though.  Of course, finding a balance that might put a swing state into play or give a ticket an added bounce in the Electoral College is important, especially in recent decades.  However, there are different variables in consideration when balancing a ticket.  The most dominant one over the past 200 years has been a regional balance between the principal candidates.  In the 19th Century, this was especially important because of the sectional crises that led to eventual Civil War.  Other usual considerations include experience (think Obama/Biden or G.W. Bush/Cheney), age (G.H. Bush/Quayle or McCain/Palin), nominating a President or Vice President who come from different wings of their party and balance each other politically (Ford/Dole in 1976 or Dukakis/Bentsen in 1988), and, more recently, race/sex/religious background (Mondale/Ferraro; McCain/Palin; Obama/Biden).