Shiva Ayyadurai Files Cert Petition over Presidential Ballot Access and “Natural Born” Clause of Article Two

On September 20, independent presidential candidate Shiva Ayyadurai filed a cert petition with the United States Supreme Court in his New Jersey ballot access case. Ayyadurai v New Jersey Democratic State Committee, number not yet assigned. Even though he had enough valid signatures, he was challenged off the ballot because he was born in India.

The cert petition points out that in four instances in the past, New Jersey had printed presidential or vice-presidential candidates’ names on the ballot, even though they did not meet the constitutional qualifications mentioned in Article Two. The petition covers some of the same issues that were argued in Trump v Anderson, on the difference between being allowed to run for office, versus hold the office. A copy of the cert petition will be posted here as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court assigns it a number and posts it.


Comments

Shiva Ayyadurai Files Cert Petition over Presidential Ballot Access and “Natural Born” Clause of Article Two — 12 Comments

  1. Drawing a distinction between eligibility to run for office and eligibility to take office, is a bizarre argument, but one that is solidly based on precedent.

    And if we are going to go by precedent anyway, then Shiva should also be allowed to hold office like Arthur, Obama and Harris were.

    Shiva is a write-in candidate in Maine. Suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine that against all odds he comes in first in one or even both of Maine’s congressional districts. Or I guess even in another state in which he is running.

    Would there be anything preventing him from instructing his elector(s) to transfer their electoral vote to another candidate instead of wasting it on him, in the event that he is barred from assuming office or considers that to be inevitable?

    I think not. Which demonstrates that the difference between eligibility to stand for office and eligibility to hold office can – at least hypothetically – have far reaching consequences.

  2. PLACE OF BIRTH MEANS ZERO

    ALLEGIANCE TO NATION-STATE VIA FATHER’S NATION-STATE STATUS

    ALLEGIANCE — LAST PARA OF 1776 DOI

    FATHER-KID-ALLEGIANCE – VATTEL – LAW OF NATIONS

  3. I’m at home here among other entities which say the same things over and over endlessly for no apparent reason. I don’t know what we think we are accomplishing or why we think that, but that’s probably because we don’t think at all.

  4. “Drawing a distinction between eligibility to run for office and eligibility to take office, is a bizarre argument, but one that is solidly based on precedent.”

    This is because the voters have a right to vote for whomever they want, even if that candidate is ineligible.

    In some cases, a candidate’s ineligibility to hold office can be removed after their election, as per Amendment 14.

  5. Nuña the Nutter is full of his birther shit. It’s racist birther shit, AFAIK, on Obama and Harris. It’s just stupid-ass birther shit on Chet Arthur. And false in all three cases.

  6. @Walter Ziobro

    “This is because the voters have a right to vote for whomever they want, even if that candidate is ineligible.”

    By WRITING-IN that candidate on their ballot certainly. (At least, I don’t imagine that Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse are eligible candidates, yet votes for them absolutely should still be tallied and reported.) But that does not imply you have a right to get your name PRINTED on the ballot for an office which you are ineligible to hold, no matter how much popular support you have.

    The argument for the latter is based purely on precedent: We have (repeatedly) done it wrong in the past, therefore it would be unfair if we stopped doing it wrong now (or at any future point). When put like that, it doesn’t sound very compelling, does it?
    It’s kind of similar to a sunk cost fallacy, where we have created this edifice built on lies, and instead being honest and trying and fix that (e.g. undoing all bills signed, appointments made, etc. by ineligible “presidents” Arthur and Obama, and ineligible “vice president” Harris), we instead choose to take the easy route and pretend like we can’t stop lying lest the whole thing comes crashing down on us.

    (And, as if that wasn’t bad enough already, then there are also the hypocrites who want to selective do the right thing only when it suits them, i.e. for the wrong reason.
    Such as all the Democrats and Republicans who want to block Shiva, ostensibly on grounds of his ineligibility, but simultaneously want to go on pretending that Chester Arthur, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, John McCain, Nikki Haley, Bobby Jindal, etc. weren’t ineligible.
    Those are the absolute worst of the lot. At least be consistent: either respect the natural born citizen clause or ignore it, but don’t try and weaponize it selectively whenever it suits your agenda. I hate that f****** disingenuous b*******.)

    “In some cases, a candidate’s ineligibility to hold office can be removed after their election, as per Amendment 14.”

    As far as I can tell, the 14th amendment does not provide any contingency that would allow a non-natural born citizen to become eligible to hold the (vice) presidency.

    Even if Shiva won the elections unanimously and with 100% of the popular vote, unless a new constitutional amendment got passed, he would still be constitutionally barred from ever being (vice) president.

  7. Birtherism is what it is. It’s not necessarily racist when some but not all of the people in question are nonwhite enough to generally be considered nonwhite (Obama and Harris are both part white). Racism might have something to do with why birther ideas spread and became popular around Obama’s election, but then many birthers applied the same goofy theories to McCain, who is generally considered white, and other whites such as Arthur etc. But, you don’t have to be even slightly racist to be a birther.

    Working backwards to claim all birtherism is racist because Obama and Harris are nonwhite enough to be generally considered nonwhite (and thus imply that anyone who holds such ideas is therefore also racist) is itself prejudiced and wrong. It cheapens any more solidly based charge of racism when you paint with too broad of a brush and call other ideas racist when they’re something else.

    Birtherism is its own thing. To what deree you agree or disagree with it is a separate issue. The reason why some people (but not others) come to believe or disbelieve in birtherism may have something to do with their racial views. For others it has nothing at all to do with race.

    The boy who cried wolf approach to calling things which are something else racist actually helps actual racism, just like that boy helps the wolf attack his village because overcharging “racism” makes actual racism pass through ignored in the mass of things that are not racist but routinely accused of being racist.

  8. @Solipsistic Dungfly

    As far as you know? Well, it’s no secret that you don’t know much of anything. But that’s never stopped you from pretending before, and clearly it isn’t stopping you now. So here you are lying as usual, being as rude as ever, and projecting your own racism and stupidity on your betters like always. How utterly dull and predictable you are, cricket brains.

  9. The argument for printing ineligible candidates on the ballot is that the candidate names are just a label for their slate of electors, who are the true candidates. Its also that secretaries of state or their equivalent in various states or whoever else adjudicates the printing of state ballots is not the proper venue to adjudicate candidate eligibility, which in the case of presidential electors would be congress.

  10. Libtards and leftards aid and abet racism, if they’re not hypocritically racist themselves, by calling all sorts of other things racism.

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