The Federalist has this detailed story about the ballot access litigation filed around Shiva Ayyadurai’s attempts to get on November ballots as a presidential candidate. It reveals that the Minnesota Secretary of State had put him on the ballot, and that an objector had then sued the Secretary of State to force his removal, but the Minnesota Supreme Court said the objection must be overruled because the objector had not served Ayyadurai properly.

The article also reveals that Ayyadurai is also on in Washington and Iowa.

The author, Matt D. Kittle, takes the position that it is obvious that all states should keep Ayyadurai off the ballot, because he was born in India. But the article doesn’t set forth the precedents, nor the reasoning, for keeping him on. It does not follow logically that just because a presidential candidate doesn’t meet the constitutional requirements, therefore his candidates for presidential elector should not be allowed to run. If his electors were elected, they might vote for someone in December who is qualified. And even if the electors voted in the electoral college for Ayyadurai, the 20th amendment to the constitution has provisions for handling a situation in which a non-qualified president or vice-president were elected.

Ayyadurai also argues that the prohibition on foreign-born presidents was repealed indirectly when the 14th amendment was passed.

The article does not mention that in 1892, the Prohibition Party candidate for vice-president was under age 35, but no state kept him off the ballot, and he appeared on the government-printed ballots of every state that had such ballots in 1892, except South Dakota. And South Dakota kept him off the ballot for reasons that had nothing to do with his age. The party failed to file for ballot position in South Dakota i 1892. The article doesn’t mention many other presidential and vice-presidential candidates who appeared on the ballot in many states in the last fifty years even though they were not age 35.

On August 30, the Ninth Circuit upheld a federal law that won’t permit a U.S. citizen living in Guam to vote as an absentee voter from his or her former residence inside one of the fifty states. Borja v Nago, 22-16742. Here is the opinion.

The vote was 2-1. The decision is by Judge Milan D. Smith, a Bush Jr. appointee. It is also signed by Judge lucy H. Koh, an Obama appointee. Judge Richard A. Paez, a Clinton appointee, dissented and wrote that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The lower court had also upheld the law.

A quirk of federal law lets U.S. citizens who live in foreign countries vote, assuming they had in the past lived in one of the fifty states. They are absentee voters in the last state in which they had lived, even if they hadn’t lived in the U.S. for decades. An even stranger quirk lets U.S. citizens who live in the Northern Mariana Islands do the same.

The Ninth Circuit frequently grants rehearings en banc, and this case has a fair chance of getting a rehearing.

On August 30, the Kansas Secretary of State said that the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. petition has enough valid signatures. No one else used the Kansas independent procedure for president this year. The qualified parties are Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, No Labels, and United Kansas, but the latter two parties aren’t running anyone for president.