Wrapping Up Day Two
Day Two of the Washington State gubernatorial election challenge is just about over, with about twenty minutes left today in court as of my writing this.
Our own David Goldstein (Goldy) of HorsesAss.org was back on John Carlson's show today, along with Stefan Sharkansky of (un)SoundPolitics. We recorded an audio clip from the show, which you can listen to here. You can also access yersterday's clip from the Audio Archive on that same page.
Major highlights from today:
Chelan County Auditor Evelyn Arnolds was the first witness called by the GOP today, as we noted earlier in our Midday Trial Update.
Bill Huennekens, King County Elections Supervisor, has been on the stand for pretty much the rest of the day...and the GOP is trying to grill him as much as possible. Keep in mind that they're alleging fraud occurred in King County - it's the centerpiece of the case - so this was important testimony for them.
Maguire at several points in time tried to get Huennekens to contradict himself, although Kevin Hamilton, an attorney for the Democrats, raised an objection each time. Bridges sutained many of the objections, although he overruled the majority of them. As David Postman noted:
We'll post further updates as we get them.
We have a full wrap up of what transpired today - and we're continuing to update our index of all Pacific Northwest Portal-affiliated blog posts about the trial.
Our own David Goldstein (Goldy) of HorsesAss.org was back on John Carlson's show today, along with Stefan Sharkansky of (un)SoundPolitics. We recorded an audio clip from the show, which you can listen to here. You can also access yersterday's clip from the Audio Archive on that same page.
NWPT48
Major highlights from today:
Bridges...ruled that Republicans can introduce evidence of the 875 absentee ballots they say cannot be connected to any voter in King County.That was from the Seattle Times' David Postman, who summed up the ruling nicely. As we've said before, this is not a surprise...and it shows the judge doesn't want to preclude evidence.
Bridges said he doesn't think the allegation is new. There was a reference to the same problem, he said, in state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance's initial statement filed with the election contest petition.
Chelan County Auditor Evelyn Arnolds was the first witness called by the GOP today, as we noted earlier in our Midday Trial Update.
Bill Huennekens, King County Elections Supervisor, has been on the stand for pretty much the rest of the day...and the GOP is trying to grill him as much as possible. Keep in mind that they're alleging fraud occurred in King County - it's the centerpiece of the case - so this was important testimony for them.
Maguire at several points in time tried to get Huennekens to contradict himself, although Kevin Hamilton, an attorney for the Democrats, raised an objection each time. Bridges sutained many of the objections, although he overruled the majority of them. As David Postman noted:
Democratic Party attorney Kevin Hamilton continually objected to the line of questioning, saying Huennekens' knowledge of the report was hearsay because he only learned it was false from talking to other staff members.Postman also has some nice quotes from Democratic attorney Kevin Hamilton, who raised a strong counterpoint to Maguire's arguments during the cross examination.
Hamilton's goal is to show the county elections staff as dedicated public servants and to portray any errors in the election count as inevitable, given that 300,000 people voted at the county's polling places Nov. 2.Bridges also noted that the Frye hearing, which will decide the whether proportional deduction for illegal votes is acceptable or not, will be Wednesday (tomorrow) and Thursday.
Hamilton: "Is it possible with 300,000 people showing up on one day, being managed by 3,000 poll workers, that everything would work perfectly without any paperwork errors at all?"
Huennekens: "I don't think it's conceivable for it to be absolutely perfect."
Hamilton: "Democracy is sometimes messy?"
Huennekens: "Sure, yeah."
Hamilton: "But you do your best to conduct the administration of the election in a fair and impartial manner?"
Huennekens: "Yes, I believe we do."
We'll post further updates as we get them.
We have a full wrap up of what transpired today - and we're continuing to update our index of all Pacific Northwest Portal-affiliated blog posts about the trial.
