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Failed Senate candidate waited too long to sue over September primary results, oh, and he sued the wrong person, state says

A federal judge should dismiss failed Senate candidate Shiva Ayyadurai's demand for a halt to the certification of both the September primary and November election and a hand recount of all ballots because Ayyadurai waited too long to file his suit and ask for a recount and because he sued Secretary of State William Galvin when it's the governor and the Governor's Council who certify election results, which they did last week.

The state Attorney General's office filed its reasoning for dismissal today in one of the two suits Ayyadurai has brought against Galvin.

In the suit over election results, he alleges Galvin did something to deprive him of a legitimate victory in September. He points to a statistical analysis of the results he did as one element of proof. Also, he continues, he did lots and lots of campaigning, had 3,000 volunteers and lots of contributions, all enough to make him a "recognized household name" in all the Commonwealth's 351 cities and town's, while his Republican opponent in September allegedly did almost none and had only a few hundred Twitter followers. Add the two together and obviously the Secretary of State obviously led a conspiracy that deprived the candidate of his just victory, at least in September, and so justice demands a judge order a recount, he concludes.

Ayyadurai's other suit alleges Galvin used his weight to get Twitter to ban his account several times leading up to the November elections, which deprived him of one of his main campaign platforms.

In its legal memorandum today, the Attorney General's office questioned why Ayyadurai waited until November to sue over the September 1 primary when "the deadline for requesting a recount] has long since passed."

Whatever the reason, Assistant Attorney General Adam Hornstine continued, the whole thing is now moot because Gov. Baker and the Governor's Council certified Edward Markey's victory on Nov. 25, as required by state law, which gives them the responsibility to certify elections, not the Secretary of State.

That law defines the Secretary of State's role as giving them copies of the results to examine and certify, and then getting a copy of their certification to distribute to newspapers.

Further, on November 30, 2020, the Governor signed a Certificate of Election, attested to by the Secretary, stating that Edward J. Markey was duly elected to the United States Senate.

Ayyadurai's lawsuit and two legal memoranda he followed up with do not discuss the governor or the Governor''s Council; instead focusing on just how allegedly evil Galvin is - at one point in one memorandum, he compares what Galvin allegedly did to the original constitutional clause defining slaves as 3/5th of a person and the Dred Scott decision, as well as something you might expect Chilean dictator Pinochet or the upper castes in India to do.

Ayyadurai filed this suit by himself, after firing his lawyer in the earlier Twitter-focused case.

At supposed issue in both suits are the one million electronic copies of ballots Ayyadurai claims Galvin's office destroyed. The state says this is impossible because the state does not keep electronic copies of ballots, but instead stores the actual paper ballots used by voters in a secure location.

In his memorandum, Hornstine referred to Ayyadurai's "alleged engineering and mathematical expertise" in analyzing election returns and coming up with a model he says show results were flipped.

Ayyadurai used that expertise in an affidavit filed on behalf of a lawsuit trying to challenge presidential results in Georgia, in which he claims he found similar improprieties. But in that case, the issue involved electronic ballots rather than the paper copies of those ballots.

State AG's memo on dismissal (143k PDF).
Ayyadurai's statistical analysis and description of Galvin's evilness (1.6M PDF).

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Comments

Did Hornstine inform Dr. Shiva of this filing by sending him an EMAIL?

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Libertarians get mad at having to contribute tax money to help maintain schools or roads or other vital aspects of society. Yet no outrage that we are all forced to keep paying babysitters to watch over Shiva?

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What exactly do you mean by babysitters?

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We get mad at having too much tax money spent to maintain schools or roads.

I'm cool with paying a road worker to fix the road. I have a problem with paying a cop to stand guard over a brief pothole fix.

I'm cool with paying a teacher to educate children. I have a problem with paying a flock of do-nothing administrators.

And if that education was really any good, it wouldn't take 20 years of schooling for someone to be the lawyer necessary to defend the Commonwealth against Shiva. Maybe that's why lawyers are so expensive. They make pretty damn good money for people who don't make anything.

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Poster claims twice that 'I'm cool' which stands in direct contrast to his years of posting facile libertarian nonsense on this here website.

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That people should have freedom and not have money taken from them to be wasted. Such dreck!

The electorate: "Science is important and should be taken seriously. Also, we should have a woman president."

Also the electorate: (Gives less than 2% of vote to female science professor with doctorate)

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Paying babysitters to watch over Shiva? Howz about an explanation.

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Not OP but I'm going to guess what he means by "babysitters" are the judges, state attorneys, and court personnel as well as other state employees who have to waste their time (and our taxpaying dollars) dealing with Shiva and his frivolous lawsuits. Shiva is supposed to be a "smart" person but can't even file his lawsuit(s) correctly.

S. reminds me of that douchebag from Sudbury who owned the dilapidated, then subsequently burned out property who kept filing lawsuits in various courts

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Poor choice of a word.

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Most reasonable people are opposed to government waste.

But the Libertarians I’ve interacted with have gone much further: no government-run schools at all, etc.

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Coulda fooled me. They sure as (expletive) like to elect the perpetrators repeatedly.

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Not hardly. I'll bet that the number of people who have ever heard of him is tiny, and most of those are reading this comment. He can comfort himself with the number of twits who follow him, but he should quit wasting our money on his masturbatory lawsuits.

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I can’t be the only person who got an early telephone poll about Elizabeth Warren versus Kevin O’Connor, and briefly wondered if the host of This Old House was running for Senate.

Come to think of it, that shared name probably got the guy some votes.

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My mom claims she once considered voting for Peter Torkildsen because she thought he was that guy from The Monkees.

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I say "don't vote" instead of "vote."

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I would very much like this show to be cancelled. The writers clearly have run out of material and the plot is going nowhere.

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In comedy, repetition is not only accepted, it's demanded. That's why it's the most predictable sitcoms that run forever.

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The mathematical analysis is easy. Just replace Markley's name with Ayyadurai and there is no question he's the outright winner.

The point of these outlandish lawsuits is for the free publicity and on that front he is winning.

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What's the endgame for him?

If this is his actual attempt to serve the people in an important in our shared governance, well, he's going to keep getting the result his efforts deserve.

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I think he just likes the spotlight. He'll keep running and being a thorn in the side of various people.

It's not unreasonable to think if another Trump-like candidate wins he might get an appointment to some low ranking government department for him to muck up.

He might also win a paid "expert" gig on one of the fringe right wing networks. He'll claim immunity from saying racists things about the vice president by claiming they are from the same background.

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To attack Kamala Harris when "bootlicker" and "pig" exist.

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.. or at least motivation: Gawker was forced into a 750K settlement with him when he sued them right after they were bankrupted by the decision against them in the Hulk Hogan lawsuit. Shiva's lawsuit was over stories Gawker ran disputing his claim to have invented email. Not only did he receive the settlement, they agreed to remove the stories. It wasn't that he won, or that his case had any merit, it was simply that he waited until Gawker was unable to fund a defense. However, he of course spun it as further "proof" that his claims were true.

It's unlikely he'll bankrupt MA, but he could be operating under the belief that if you're a pest for long enough, you'll come away with something.

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There's also the TechDirt case, which he lost.

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Republicans who got their asses kicked sure do love showing off how dumb they are with stupid lawsuits lately.

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Yes Trump lost, but correct me if I’m wrong. They control the vast majority of state beaches, picked up house seat and will control the senate.

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Let's wait to see what happens in Georgia next month.

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Didn't Gov Christie find himself in hot water over controlling a state beach?
IMAGE(<a href="https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/07/chris-christie-beach.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=618&h=410&crop=1)">https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/07/chris-christie-bea...

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I wasn't going to vote for Kevin O'Conner but it was slightly reassuring to see him kick Ayyadurai's ass in the primary. I did see a bunch of Ayyadurai signs so good to know his supporters don't represent the MA GOP majority.

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We should try to remember where the signs were. (All seven of them.) Anyone who would support him would surely benefit from a psych evaluation.

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were on Route 2 where it stops being limited access, around Orange.

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The first paragraph is one sentence with 5 "ands".

get a copywriter.

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Are you paying for that? I doubt Adam could swing that in his budget currently, but if you can change that: https://www.universalhub.com/donation

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