Candidate Sues To Block Certification Of MA Senate Race

MASSACHUSETTS — Shiva Ayyadurai, who ran unsuccessfully for U. S. Senate in 2018 and again this year, filed a lawsuit in federal court last week seeking to block the certification of the Sept. 1 Republican primary and the Nov. 3 general election in Massachusetts.

In his complaint filed Nov. 20, Ayyadurai claims Secretary of State William Galvin ordered electronic voting machines to delete ballot images after votes were counted. Ayyadurai, who is representing himself, was seeking an injunction that would have blocked the certification of the Republican Senate primary and the general election Senate race that was won by incumbent Ed Markey, a Democrat. "Chain of custody has been broken, no transparent audit of the ballot images used for tabulating the vote count is possible and the declared numbers are unreliable," Ayyadurai wrote in his complaint. "Only a hand-count of paper ballots submitted in both the primary and the Senate races can restore the credibility of the vote count."

The election results were certified and approved by the Governor's Council Wednesday afternoon. In a preliminary ruling Tuesday, a U. S. District Court judge noted Ayyadurai "allegedly received" the information about the deleted ballot scans from the primary in September but waited until weeks after the general election in November to file his complaint. In a separate lawsuit against Galvin earlier this year, Ayyadurai claimed Galvin "coerced Twitter to delete plaintiff's tweets claiming the defendant unlawfully destroyed Republican primary ballots."

Ayyadurai did not file an affidavit in support of his motion requesting a preliminary injunction. He also failed to serve Galvin's office or make a good faith effort to resolve the... (Read more)

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