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).