Can a nominee for an executive office be nominated/confirmed against their will?

[Virginiá]

For instance, if POTUS nominates a person, and then that person turns down the job, can the Senate still vote to confirm them? Put aside all Senate rules/etc - if the president says that person is nominated, and the Senate votes to confirm, would that person's verbal/written refusal actually mean anything? Wouldn't they officially "get" the job, and have to quit in order to make their refusal stick?

My question is also for judicial nominations as well.

[angus]

Interesting question.  I was recently nominated for an office one a committee of which I am a member and I emailed the outgoing committee chair and asked whether I could learn the identity of the person who nominated me, and he replied that it was very unorthodox to be nominated without prior consultation and that I was under no obligation to accept the nomination.  We all later received an email message stating that we should get a person's consent before nominating him or her for anything.

I realize that this doesn't necessarily mean that it works that way in the government but I would assume that it does.  Also, even if someone were nominated, for example, for supreme court justice without prior consultation one of the first items that would be discussed in the confirmation hearings would be the nominee's unwillingness to take on the task.  I assume that this would be a deal-breaker.  The judiciary committee members would probably look at each other and think "WTF?" and pretty quickly get on to other business.

[Virginiá]

Oh it is definitely not something I'd ever expect to actually happen, but at the same time, I'm just wondering about whether or not it can be done. The Constitution doesn't say anything about the nominee's willingness, so if the president says they are nominated and the Senate votes to confirm, I would think they would assume the duties of the office they were nominated for regardless of whether they wanted it or not.

In fact, if it does indeed work that way, I would think POTUS could effectively force a person to assume the responsibilities of some office by constantly renominating and getting the Senate to confirm each time the person in question quits