In 2024, Shiva Ayyadurai was an independent presidential candidate. He was not born in the U.S., but he filed several lawsuits arguing that he should still be allowed on the ballot. One of his cases was in Nebraska, where his petition had enough valid signatures but he still was barred from the ballot, based on the “natural born” provision in the U.S. Constitution for presidential qualifications.
The U.S. District Court in Nebraska had ruled on May 28, 2025, that the lawsuit is moot because Ayyadurai had not alleged he planned to run for president again in 2028. On November 13, 2025, the Eighth Circuit agreed. The Eight Circuit only wrote one sentence, saying the District Court had not erred. The three judges were Duane Benton, Bobby E. Shepherd, and David R. Stras.
Both courts were wrong about mootness. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that ballot access cases are not moot just because the election is over. That case was Moore v Ogilvie. In 1973, another U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Richardson v Ramirez, discussed the Moore case and noted that the plaintiff-candidates in Moore were not intending to run again.
The Nebraska Ayyadurai case was pro se, meaning that the plaintiffs did not have an attorney and wrote the pleadings themselves.