This is Wednesday, June 1st, 2005. Welcome to Part II (Afternoon Coverage) of today's edition of the LIVE Trial Diary.
Back in January, Dino "Saur Loser" Rossi decided to contest the results of the 2004 WA state gubernatorial election and filed a lawsuit in Chelan County Superior Court, hoping to toss out the election of Christine Gregoire.
The trial in the case is taking place this week as well as last week.
As usual, Pacific NW Portal has all the information you need to brief yourself on the trial. It is always updated daily with the latest information - including a useful index of news stories, blogs, commentary, and other resoruces.
I will provide updates from the Chelan County courthouse as often as I can. I am not actually there, but I am watching the trial.
So far today, we've heard from King County Elections Director Dean Logan, whose testimony has taken up the entire morning's proceedings. Logan has talked about everything from his background/experience to the elections process itself to mistakes made last fall and afterwards to elections policy and procedure.
Once again, updates will be posted here. I'll also post links to other relevant sites throughout the day.
You can watch the feeds here, courtesy of TVW.
[1:30 PM] Court has reconvened.
[1:35 PM] Democratic lawyer Kevin Hamilton is at the podium, asking followup questions of Dean Logan, who is still on the witness stand.
[1:40 PM] Hamilton is asking Logan what he knew of Dan Brady, who was the GOP's top observer during the election and subsequent recounts. Hamilton is pointing out that the elections process is transparent - things are not done in secret. This undermines the GOP charges of fraud and ballot box stuffing.
[1:44 PM] The judge is speaking to Dean Logan directly now, and asking him questions.... Bridges: "is there is a sense of urgency about fixing issues in King County?" ... Logan says they have made progress in fixing problems.
[1:46 PM] Logan is finished. The Democrats are calling Professor Adolph back to the stand. Adolph testified last week in the Frye hearing. Get biographical details/background for Mr. Adolph and the other experts here.
[1:50 PM] Democratic lawyer David Burman is now at the podium for the Democrats, asking Adolph questions. Braden will likely be representing the GOP while the experts are on the stand.
[2:00 PM] Adolph is once again explaining why the GOP's methods, analysis, and arguments are not based on sound science.
[2:15 PM] Fine details from Adolph. This is kind of like reprise of last week; we're hearing many of the same arguments and explanations we heard from both this professor as well as his colleague, Mark Handcock.
[2:30 PM] They're into slides now. Adolph is going over the GOP's experts (Katz and Gill) data and showing how they arrived at their flawed conclusion. The key words from Adolph seem to be "ecological fallacy" which explain why Katz and Gill's methodology just isn't sound science.
[2:45 PM] More slides, and we're getting into mathematical details here. Lot of statistical terminology is being used.
[2:55 PM] Court is in recess for midafternoon break. Loyal readers, now's your chance to get some popcorn and bottled water from your nearest concession stand :)
[3:12 PM] Court has reconvened.
[3:22 PM] GOP attorney Mark Braden (a Karl Rove emissary) is now at the podium cross examining Adolph.
[3:42 PM] Braden is still at it. Burman has objected several times to his line of questioning, but to no avail. The judge says he is tired of playing referee between Braden and Adolph...
[3:55 PM] Burman is now back up at the podium, for followup questions.
[4:05 PM] Adolph is done. The Democrats are entering more evidence into the record now and then they will call in their next witness.
[4:13 PM] Linda Sanchez, the elections operations supervisor for King County, has taken the stand for the Democrats.
[4:30 PM] Hamilton is still asking questions.
[5:05 PM] Court has recessed for the day.