Judge tosses e-mail papa's suit to get on the presidential ballot despite not being born in the US

Possible bad news for people who were hoping for a presidential debate between two virulent anti-vaxxers with Massachusetts ties: A federal judge in Washington, DC this week threw out Shiva Ayyadurai's lawsuit bid to get on presidential ballots, concluding he sued too early, because he has yet to actually try to get on ballots anywhere and get rejected for having been born in Mumbai.

Because he has no actual legal "injury" yet, he has no "standing" to bring suit in federal court, US District Court Judge Loren L. AliKhan ruled. And that means she did not have to address his argument that Article II of the Constitution - which requires presidents to be "natural born" - has been overridden by the 1st, 5th and 14th amendments.

"Standing" is a fundamental concept in federal court; Ayyadurai filed his case pro se without a lawyer.

However, AliKhan dismissed the serial candidate's lawsuit without prejudice, which means he could return to court once he actually files to get on the ballot somewhere and is rejected, so we could still see some jawboning between Ayyadurai, a Massachusetts man who once sued Robert F. Kennedy Jr, of the Massachusetts Kennedys, for calling him out as not as anti-vaxxy as Ayyadurai claimed to be (the case was dismissed for "want of prosecution").

Ayyadurai had sued both the Washington, DC elections department and the Department of Justice in an attempt to have the "natural born" requirement thrown out so he could get elected president and take on critical issues such as ending mask use and fending off the British.

AliKhan noted that while Ayyadurai claimed a campaign staffer had talked to somebody in the DC election office about getting on the ballot, that staffer was told the forms for independent candidates like him would not be available until June, 2024.

While these actions indicate that Dr. Ayyadurai has a concrete interest in running for President, they provide nothing material to suggest that he will succeed in completing the prerequisites and then be prevented from appearing on the ballot in the District of Columbia because he is not a “natural born” citizen. As Defendants note, it is entirely possible that other obstacles will befall his campaign first, including an inability to obtain the required number of signatures. In this way, Dr. Ayyadurai's injury concerning ballot access in the District of Columbia rests upon "contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all."

She continued that, in suing the Justice Department, he claimed that both Utah and Wyoming had asked him to confirm he was "natural born," but that neither had actually rejected him outright from their ballots - and that even if they had, the Department of Justice is not the party to sue over their actions:

Unless and until that happens, Dr. Ayyadurai has not suffered a sufficiently concrete injury to confer standing. But even if Utah or Wyoming did render an unfavorable decision on his eligibility, the court would still lack standing because Dr. Ayyadurai has not alleged any causal connection between those decisions and any actions by DOJ. ...

While Dr. Ayyadurai contends that DOJ has "power and authority to supervise state election compliance with civil rights laws and to enter into consent agreements with states regarding state election law and ballot access," it is under no obligation to exercise any authority it may have for his benefit ... Because his alleged injury is not “fairly traceable” to DOJ, Dr. Ayyadurai lacks standing to pursue his claim.

Ayyadurai still has one other pending lawsuit in Washington federal court: His allegation of a global conspiracy against a federal cybersecurity agency, Facebook, Google and the former Twitter that reprises his failed lawsuit against Secretary of State Bill Galvin in alleging the conspiracy, acting in concert with the British, is out to get independent thinkers like him.