Court had a late start on Tuesday due to technical issues. Housekeeping made me smile, with Judge Roland speaking about the final phase of the trial. Eastman has to have a sense of an unpleasant outcome as he watches the State Bar run circles around his defense day after day. Ah, for the pleasantries of democracy.
Testimony lanes were drawn on Eastman witnesses Droz, Blehar and Young. Droz and Blehar have reports under submission waiting to be entered into evidence. Young, whose testimony will be upcoming, was designated an expert witness limited to testimony about the Contrast Analysis Report on the Election Integrity website. Delays in expediated transcript requests had Miller ask Judge Roland for assistance as the trial ticks toward closing arguments quickly.
John Droz was sworn in to continue with his cross examination. The State Bar wasted no time out of the gate, picking up on the topic regarding his belief about any election in his lifetime having been reliable. Droz testified that he believes no election in US history has ever been reliable. He asserts that about 10 years ago, certain groups he didn’t identify realized the porousness of elections and took advantage of it in the 2020 presidential election. For his research, he read reports about it, almost all of them, he said. Prior to 2020, he stated an interest in the election system, in general and read about concerns from both sides of the aisle, noting an appendix from an Election Integrity report.
The State Bar addresses allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. Droz stated his team was not looking for fraud, just anomalies. The State Bar pondered Droz’s research into elections prior to 2020 to compare data and evidence his anomaly suspicions. Negative to any comparison except for 2016, “We were in a rush,” he actually said. Really now, the hurrying need to distribute bs info out with unrefined construed accuracy to the vulnerable public should be enough to overturn a presidential election, no? Hell, no!
Droz threw down a “not an expert, so I can’t answer” card when asked about his techniques used to identify election patterns out of the ordinary in 2020. Judge Roland directed him to answer about his personal knowledge. He sparred back and forth with the judge about the “not an expert” point, until it was made clear that once the State Bar had restated the question, she ordered him to answer. Oh, my. He did answer, vaguely relaying that rather than look at historical data, he did not question the info submitted by the Election Integrity PhDs contributors.
The State Bar continued to slam Droz, point by point, through the exhibit Michigan 2020 Voting Analysis to which he had testified in support of Eastman. Highlighted were details in the executive summary he wrote about election glitches in Michigan such as voter ID concerns with non-citizens and felons voting. He testified he did no reading of academic or political science studies other than those cited on his Appendix A.
Droz testified that he didn’t recall if Eastman asked about the qualifications of anybody writing reports for the Election Integrity group or if Droz had experience in election or statistical analysis. Droz said that he believes election experience isn’t relevant to the analysis because numbers are numbers. He’s the data is data guy, so it makes total sense that he doubts election data expertise would be beneficial analyzing statistics about elections. Numbers are numbers, whatever the field, he testified, again.
First establishing a connection to Sidney Powell with her reaching out to the Election Integrity group for assistance, the State Bar then completed questioning.
On redirect, Miller asked Droz about the Contrast Analysis report co-written by Young and Blehar that compared the 2016 presidential election to 2020. Droz confirmed being familiar with the results, stated he agreed with their conclusions and had no concerns about their credibility.
Droz declared the approach he took in picking a team to work on Election Integrity reports was done in a nonpartisan way. Research he himself had done included reading bipartisan studies about the election process. Droz published a periodic newsletter on his website. Miller asked how he became proficient in election integrity overall prior to the 2020 election.
I smile as I write this thinking of Droz’s response that startled me and may surprise you. Droz revealed himself as a member of Mensa. He’s a certified genius so learns faster than others, he said. Okay, now I’m laughing as I recall the testimony, smdh wth. Just saying.
A delay in proceedings was due to Miller’s exhibits, a report and then an email exchange, that didn’t match copies the judge and State Bar had. Judge Roland’s organized document binder put Miller in a “Let’s move on” bind. Miller then said he had nothing further.
The State Bar did a quick further cross exam on a few points and Droz was then excused. Yay to that, buh bye!
After a lunch break, Ray Blehar was sworn in for cross examination. The State Bar busted him straight away about information he learned about the trial testimony of witnesses on X prior to his own testimony. Blehar confirmed that he had been following conservative commenter, Rachel Alexander, on testimony related details for about a week prior to his own testimony. Judges frown upon such disregard of rules set forth, to my understanding. At the time of his disclosure, Judge Roland did not interject an opinion yay or nay.
The State Bar asked Blehar about his experience analyzing election data prior to 2020. Not much to talk about there as he had none, he testified. Instead, Blehar had a lot to say about his work on satellite orbit quality assurance, mapping and other space speak.
The State Bar went into data ask mode looking at the Contrast Analysis report that Blehar had co-authored. Vote comparisons of 2016 v 2020 with differences in the vote counts of large counties was the topic of testimony. Blehar spoke at length about large standard deviations in his data that he said triggered a need for a closer look at election anomalies.
Blehar had also work on the Vote Spike analysis using Edison data of vote totals that came from SOS offices, The New York Times election data base and exit polling. Normal distribution, more standard deviation and other data chatter with differences between urban and rural counts and vote spikes went on and on. Droz edited the Vote Spike analysis and Blehar agreed with any changes to the report, he testified.
Eastman had reached out to Blehar after the Georgia Senate runoff in January 2021. With that line of questioning left for the next day, Judge Roland confirmed with Blehar that his cross exam would continue then and we went off the record.
https://www.statebarcourt.ca.gov/Portals/2/documents/notices/State-Bar-Court-Public-Events.pdf
