Candidate sues to block Senate certification

AN India born unsuccessful candidate for US Senate has sued to halt the certification of the September 1 Republican primary and November 3 general election in Massachusetts, local media reports said.

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, in a lawsuit filed in federal court earlier this month, claims Secretary of State William Galvin ordered electronic voting machines to delete ballot images after votes were counted, Patch Boston reported.

Ayyadurai, of south Indian origin, was seeking an injunction to block the certification of the Republican Senate primary and the Senate race 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 said 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,' Patch reported.

The election results were certified and approved by the Governor's Council earlier.

In a preliminary ruling Tuesday, a US 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.

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 issue with attorneys for Galvin's office, the court was cited as saying.

The court, according to Patch, said it would reconsider the motion if he tried to resolve the issue with Galvin's office and filed an affidavit supporting his claims.

In 2020, he ran as a Republican but lost to Kevin O'Connor in the September 1 primary. He also ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign in the November 3 general election for Senate.

Ayyadurai, holds four degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), including a PhD in biological engineering.

In 2018, Ayyadurai received 3.39 percent of the vote when he ran for Senate as an independent candidate.