On September 30, independent presidential candidate Shiva Ayyadurai filed a federal lawsuit against the Nebraska Secretary of State. Even though his petition had enough valid signatures, the Secretary of State kept him off because he was born in India. Lauters v Evnen, 4:24cv-03175. The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge John Gerrard, an Obama appointee. Here is the Complaint.

No presidential candidate in history has filed so many lawsuits over constitutional qualifications and ballot access. In the distant past, states always put such candidates on the ballot, as happened in 1892 when the Prohibition Party nominated a 33-year old for vice-president. No state kept him off the ballot on the grounds that he didn’t meet the qualifications. That is because in 1892, people undrestood that the true candidates were the candidates for elector. Back then the voters of every state voted for individual candidates for elector.

In 1972, when the Socialist Workers Party nominated Linda Jenness, who was 33 years old, she waged a vigorous legal challenge to the Ohio decision to exclude her. But she lost that case, and did not sue any other states over that issue.

Peta Lindsay, the 2012 nominee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, also an underage candidate, only filed one lawsuit, in California. When that lost, she did not file any other lawsuits.

But Ayyadurai has now sued New Jersey, Utah, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Nebraska. His lawsuits always point out that the true candidates are his candidates for presidential elector, and they meet all the qualifications.

As already reported, on September 27, the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to let Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. withdraw from the ballot. Kennedy v Wisconsin Election Commission, 2024 WI37. Here is the 7-page opinion.

Significantly, it did not decide whether it is unconstitutional to give independent candidates less opportunity to withdraw, compared to party nominees. See page five. That matter has not been decided.

EIGHT WINS, SEVEN LOSSES IN BALLOT ACCESS CASES

During August, minor parties and independents won eight lawsuits or challenges, and lost seven.  However, not all the cases are over.

Winning Cases

Illinois:  on August 23, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., won his challenge process and will appear on the ballot.  The decision says that it doesn’t matter if he was recently a registered Democrat; he can still be an independent candidate in Illinois.  It says his address was not sworn to on his paperwork, so it doesn’t matter if there is evidence that he doesn’t live at his designated New York state address.

Some of his petitioners had worked on other petitions in other states this year.  Also some of them had worked on Kennedy’s independent petitions in other states.  Illinois is the only state that won’t let petitioners work for a general election candidate if they had worked on other petitions that year.  The decision says that the petitioners who circulated general election petitions in other states (either for Kennedy or some other minor party or independent candidate) can circulate for Kennedy in Illinois.  But petitioners who worked on Republican or Democratic primary petitions in other states can’t circulate for him.  Fortunately, even after those signatures were subtracted, he still had enough.

Maine:  on August 21, the Secretary of State dismissed the challenge to Cornel West’s petition.  The challengers had said he didn’t have enough valid signatures, but they wanted to disallow all signatures in which the signer used a nickname instead of a formal first name.  They also wanted to reject all signatures in which the signer included the month and day of signing, but not the year.

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