Proposed Presidential Electors Lack Article III Standing to Challenge Candidate Disqualification Absent a Personal Ballot-Access Injury or Third-Party Standing

Introduction

In Rohr v. State of Utah (10th Cir. Feb. 27, 2026) (nonprecedential “Order and Judgment”), the Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a § 1983 election-law suit for lack of Article III standing. The plaintiffs—Gian Martinez-Ferrate, Andre Martinez-Ferrate, and Marilyn (Marylin) Westenskow—were designated as proposed presidential electors for unaffiliated presidential candidate Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai under Utah’s election regime. After Utah’s Lieutenant Governor disqualified Dr. Shiva as not being a “natural born citizen,” the electors sued state entities and officials contending that their removal from the general-election ballot was unlawful.

The central issues on appeal were (1) whether proposed presidential electors suffer a cognizable, personal injury when the underlying candidate is disqualified from the ballot, and (2) whether they could litigate the candidate’s ballot-access rights in the candidate’s absence. A subsidiary procedural issue arose when plaintiffs moved on appeal to add Dr. Shiva and his running mate as appellants.

Summary of the Opinion

The Tenth Circuit held that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing because they did not plausibly allege an injury in fact. Their theory depended on the premise that electors (not candidates) appear on the ballot; the court rejected that premise as inconsistent with Utah law and the structure of presidential elections. Because the candidate and running mate were never validly placed on the ballot, the proposed electors had no personal right to appear on the ballot as electors and therefore no concrete, particularized injury. The court further noted that the plaintiffs had not established third-party standing to assert Dr. Shiva’s or the running mate’s rights. The panel also denied the motion to add Dr. Shiva and the running mate as parties on appeal for failure to cite authority as required by the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

  • Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer, 425 F.3d 836 (10th Cir. 2005): The court relied on Garrett for two related propositions: (a) pro se filings are liberally construed, but (b) the court will not act as counsel or excuse noncompliance with procedural rules. This directly supported the denial of the motion to add new appellants when the motion lacked supporting legal authority.
  • Yang v. Archuleta, 525 F.3d 925 (10th Cir. 2008): Cited alongside Garrett to reinforce the limit of pro se leniency—procedural defaults and advocacy gaps are not cured by liberal construction.
  • TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021): Used as a modern anchor for the constitutional “case or controversy” limitation and the baseline requirement that plaintiffs have standing in their own right.
  • Food & Drug Admin. v. All. for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. 367 (2024): Provided the court’s contemporary articulation of standing’s three elements (injury, causation, redressability), and emphasized that a cognizable injury must be personal rather than a generalized grievance.
  • Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016): Supplied the pleading-stage instruction that plaintiffs must “clearly allege” facts establishing each element, and the familiar requirements that injury be “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent.” The court used Spokeo to conclude plaintiffs failed at the first step—injury in fact.
  • Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. 578 (2020): Invoked to underscore state authority over the appointment and regulation of presidential electors. The panel used this principle to contextualize Utah’s statutory design—electors are appointed through state-defined processes that presuppose a valid candidate pathway, not an elector-only ballot entitlement.
  • Hill v. Warsewa, 947 F.3d 1305 (10th Cir. 2020): Cited for the proposition that litigants generally may not rest claims on the legal rights of third parties. The plaintiffs, as electors, did not show they could assert Dr. Shiva’s or the running mate’s ballot-access rights.
  • Lupia v. Medicredit, Inc., 8 F.4th 1184 (10th Cir. 2021): Used for the standard judicial practice that once the court finds no injury in fact, it need not analyze the remaining standing elements.
  • Carpenter v. Vilsack, No. 22-8079, 2023 WL 6810960 (10th Cir. Oct. 16, 2023): Cited consistently with Lupia to support stopping the standing inquiry after failure on injury in fact.

Legal Reasoning

  1. Procedural enforcement at the appellate gate. The panel first addressed the motion to add Dr. Shiva and the running mate as appellants, denying it because it cited no supporting legal authority, as required by Fed. R. App. P. 27(a)(2)(A). By applying Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer, the court reaffirmed that pro se status does not relax appellate procedural obligations—particularly when the requested relief would alter party status on appeal.
  2. Standing turns on a personal, legally cognizable ballot-access injury. The plaintiffs’ standing theory rested on a factual/legal predicate: Utah voters “cast votes for presidential electors rather than candidates,” and therefore electors are effectively the ballot-listed “contestants.” The court rejected this as “inaccurate,” grounding its analysis in Utah’s statutory structure:
    • Utah requires unaffiliated presidential candidates to name electors. (Utah Code Ann. § 20A-13-301(1)(c))
    • Those electors later cast votes for President and Vice President. (Utah Code Ann. § 20A-13-304; U.S. Const. amend. XII)
    • Utah expressly excludes presidential electors from the definition of “candidates for elective office.” (Utah Code Ann. § 20A-9-101(1)(a), (b)(ii))
    The court adopted the district court’s framing that the “logical forerunner” to appointing electors is a validly participating presidential candidate. Because the Lieutenant Governor rejected Dr. Shiva’s filing on constitutional eligibility grounds (the “natural born citizen” requirement), Dr. Shiva and the running mate “were never candidates or on the ballot.” Consequently, proposed electors were not on the ballot either and “had no right to be presidential electors.”
  3. No third-party standing to litigate the candidate’s disqualification. The court further reasoned that even if the disqualification could be contested, the proper litigants would be those whose ballot access was directly denied (Dr. Shiva and the running mate). The electors did not show they met the requirements for third-party standing (as referenced through Hill v. Warsewa) and thus could not litigate the candidate’s rights by proxy.
  4. Notice-based injury fails under the governing statute. Plaintiffs also argued they were injured because the state did not notify them of the rejection of Dr. Shiva’s or the running mate’s filings. The court disposed of this by pointing to Utah Code Ann. § 20A-9-202(5)(a)-(c), which requires notice to “putative candidates” (the candidate/VP filer), not to the candidate’s proposed electors. Without a statutory entitlement to notice, the alleged informational/procedural harm could not supply the missing injury in fact.
  5. Stopping rule after injury-in-fact failure. Having found no injury in fact under Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and Food & Drug Admin. v. All. for Hippocratic Med., the panel ended the standing analysis, citing Lupia v. Medicredit, Inc. and Carpenter v. Vilsack.

Impact

Although designated as nonprecedential, the decision has persuasive significance in election-related litigation within the Tenth Circuit in several ways:

  • Elector-status is derivative, not independently justiciable. Proposed presidential electors cannot manufacture standing by reframing a candidate disqualification as an “elector removal” injury when state law treats electors as downstream of, and contingent on, a valid candidate’s ballot placement.
  • Ballot-access challenges must be brought by the right plaintiffs. The opinion signals that courts will closely police who is entitled to challenge candidate eligibility decisions. Absent a developed third-party standing theory, campaigns cannot delegate federal litigation to affiliated individuals (such as proposed electors) to avoid procedural or strategic obstacles.
  • Procedural rigor for party changes on appeal. The denial of the motion to add parties reinforces that appellate courts expect explicit authority and rule-based justification for altering party status after judgment—especially where the new parties were not litigants below.
  • Notice claims depend on a clear legal entitlement. The court’s statutory reading suggests that “lack of notice” arguments will fail absent a statute (or constitutional doctrine) conferring notice rights on the specific claimant.

Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Article III standing: The constitutional requirement that a plaintiff show a real, personal harm that a court can likely remedy. It is not enough to disagree with government action; the plaintiff must be the one concretely affected.
  • Injury in fact: A specific and real-world harm to the plaintiff’s own legally protected interests, not a speculative or abstract complaint.
  • Third-party standing: A limited exception that sometimes allows someone to sue on behalf of another person’s rights. Courts generally require a close relationship and a genuine obstacle preventing the right-holder from suing, among other constraints.
  • Presidential electors vs. candidates: Voters effectively select a slate associated with a candidate, but the legal “candidate” is the person running for President; electors are the state-law mechanism by which the Electoral College vote is later cast. Under Utah law as cited, electors are not “candidates for elective office.”
  • Nonprecedential disposition: The court stated its order is “not binding precedent” (except for law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel), meaning it does not control later cases but may be cited for its persuasive reasoning.

Conclusion

Rohr v. State of Utah reinforces a practical standing rule in presidential-election disputes: proposed presidential electors generally lack Article III standing to challenge a state’s disqualification of the underlying candidate where the electors’ alleged injury is derivative of the candidate’s failed ballot access, and where they cannot satisfy third-party standing. The decision also highlights that pro se litigants receive liberal construction of filings, but not exemption from procedural rules—particularly when seeking to add new parties on appeal.