Noon Briefing from Chelan County
The Chelan County Superior Court is once again on lunch break, so we're bringing you a noon briefing covering what's happened today.
Finally, the trial isn't boring any more. Since we're through Reed's deposition, as well as Huennekens' and Way's testimony, we finally got to the exciting part - the Frye Hearing. It began this morning after both sides had finished questioning Clark Bensen, a factual expert for the GOP who also works for Polidata.
The GOP called Professor Jonathon Katz to the stand. They'd barely gotten started when Democratic lawyer David Burman raised an objection, triggering the Frye Hearing. The Frye Hearing is a legal test to determine whether that the science the expert witnesses basing their case on is accepted, sound, and reliable.
So, basically, the Democrats were challenging the methodology and the analysis Katz has done. They did this in two main ways: (1) First, Burman conducted a lengthy cross examination of Katz, and (2) the Democrats brought up their own experts - Christopher Adolph and Mark Handcock - to explain why Katz' methodology is not sound science.
The methodology that Katz is presenting to the court is known as "proportional deduction" (other names have been proposed for it; Democrats call it "speculative attribution"). Based on geographical data, the Republicans want to sutract illegal votes based on the voting patterns of an individual precinct.
This approach is flawed because, as the Democrats clearly pointed out, it does not take into account any other information - particularly demographic information. Legal voters and illegal voters are simply not exactly alike.
Here's a few excerpts from David Postman's notes:
Archerhouse has thoroughly covered this morning's events in his LIVE Trial Diary. You can find more specific summaries about what transpired by following the link above.
Finally, we've got some background information for you on all of the factual and expert witnesses who have testified so far.
Clark Bensen
Clark Bensen, the GOP's factual witness, is a data analyst and attorney long active in politics at the local, state and national levels. He is a Republican, and according to his testimony, his political experience is "solely Republican". He founded Polidata, his own company, in 1974. The company undertakes the collection, analysis and dissemination of data related to the "art of politics".
>> Website: Clark Bensen, Polidata
Jonathan Katz
Jonathan N. Katz, the GOP's first expert witness, is a Professor of Political Science at the California Institute of Technology. He also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies for the Social Sciences at Caltech. His research interests focus on American politics, political methodology (statistics applied to political science), and formal political theory.
>> Website: Jonathan Katz, CalTech
Christopher Adolph
Christopher Adolph, the Democrats' first expert witness, is an assistant professor in political science at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is also a core faculty member of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (factsheet). He works in the fields of comparative political economy and political methodology.
>> Website: Christopher Adolph, University of Washington
Mark Handcock
Mark Handcock, the Democrats' second expert witness, is a Professor of Statistics and Sociology at the University of Washington. He recieved his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Chicago in 1989. His research involves methodological development, and is based largely on motivation from questions in the social sciences. His work focuses on the development of statistical models for the analysis of social network data, spatial processes and longitudinal data arising in labor economics.
>> Website: Mark Handcock, University of Washington
There you go. We'll post another update this evening with a full day's recap.
Finally, the trial isn't boring any more. Since we're through Reed's deposition, as well as Huennekens' and Way's testimony, we finally got to the exciting part - the Frye Hearing. It began this morning after both sides had finished questioning Clark Bensen, a factual expert for the GOP who also works for Polidata.
NWPT48
The GOP called Professor Jonathon Katz to the stand. They'd barely gotten started when Democratic lawyer David Burman raised an objection, triggering the Frye Hearing. The Frye Hearing is a legal test to determine whether that the science the expert witnesses basing their case on is accepted, sound, and reliable.
So, basically, the Democrats were challenging the methodology and the analysis Katz has done. They did this in two main ways: (1) First, Burman conducted a lengthy cross examination of Katz, and (2) the Democrats brought up their own experts - Christopher Adolph and Mark Handcock - to explain why Katz' methodology is not sound science.
The methodology that Katz is presenting to the court is known as "proportional deduction" (other names have been proposed for it; Democrats call it "speculative attribution"). Based on geographical data, the Republicans want to sutract illegal votes based on the voting patterns of an individual precinct.
This approach is flawed because, as the Democrats clearly pointed out, it does not take into account any other information - particularly demographic information. Legal voters and illegal voters are simply not exactly alike.
Here's a few excerpts from David Postman's notes:
Democrats' expert witnesses have criticized the Republican theory of "proportional deduction" in part because the sample of illegal votes the GOP is using was hand-selected by Republicans; that is, it doesn't necessarily reflect the entire universe of illegal votes.Especially since the Democrats have their own list of felon voters to use as backup in the case. Another excerpt:
Before the lunch break Burman asked Handcock about the one election case he has written about. It turns out that the Pennsylvania case involved proportional deduction, and Handcock said it had included a survey of voters and testimony from a number of the alleged illegal voters.It's worth nothing that the GOP's case here didn't include a survey of voters or testimony. The GOP says felon voters cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Isn't that interesting? Another dispatch from Postman:
UW professor Christopher Adolph, the Democratic Party's expert witness, said that since 1950 scientists have been cautioned about "aggregation bias" and "ecological fallacy" that could skew results when using ecological inference.Adolph, by the way, made an excellent presentation and was great on the stand. He was very cool under fire when questioned by Mark Braden, one of the GOP's lawyers. For never having testified in court before, he made a very good showing.
He said one example is that the Republican theory assumes that the sample of alleged felons are exactly the same as the total group of voters in a given precinct. But, he said, the list of felons has a much higher percentage of males than the wider population.
The Republican method "is very badly flawed," Adolph said, because it "commits the ecological fallacy and assumes felons are just like everyone else."
Archerhouse has thoroughly covered this morning's events in his LIVE Trial Diary. You can find more specific summaries about what transpired by following the link above.
Finally, we've got some background information for you on all of the factual and expert witnesses who have testified so far.
Clark Bensen
Clark Bensen, the GOP's factual witness, is a data analyst and attorney long active in politics at the local, state and national levels. He is a Republican, and according to his testimony, his political experience is "solely Republican". He founded Polidata, his own company, in 1974. The company undertakes the collection, analysis and dissemination of data related to the "art of politics".
>> Website: Clark Bensen, Polidata
Jonathan Katz
Jonathan N. Katz, the GOP's first expert witness, is a Professor of Political Science at the California Institute of Technology. He also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies for the Social Sciences at Caltech. His research interests focus on American politics, political methodology (statistics applied to political science), and formal political theory.
>> Website: Jonathan Katz, CalTech
Christopher Adolph
Christopher Adolph, the Democrats' first expert witness, is an assistant professor in political science at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is also a core faculty member of the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (factsheet). He works in the fields of comparative political economy and political methodology.
>> Website: Christopher Adolph, University of Washington
Mark Handcock
Mark Handcock, the Democrats' second expert witness, is a Professor of Statistics and Sociology at the University of Washington. He recieved his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Chicago in 1989. His research involves methodological development, and is based largely on motivation from questions in the social sciences. His work focuses on the development of statistical models for the analysis of social network data, spatial processes and longitudinal data arising in labor economics.
>> Website: Mark Handcock, University of Washington
There you go. We'll post another update this evening with a full day's recap.
