WA Gov: Day THREE--Show Me the Way

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[Jiminy flipping Xmas--couldn't SOMEBODY have told me it's day three of this trial already?? What am I paying you people to read me for, anyway?]

Well, I suppose I should follow the developing meme and exclaim huffily, "GAWD is this trial boring!" On the other hand, I wonder what it is everyone was expecting. Election trials, especially those with a heavy dose of number theory to be placed in evidence, do not strike me as good candidates for scripting into an episode of  Law and Order. Maybe people were hoping the ballot reconciliation forms had been splashed with luminol in hopes of picking up traces of blood, presumably as Bill Huennekens and Nicole Way argued over the best way to falsify the document. Or maybe based on the wild and fanciful claims of ballot stuffing and pernicious fraud from Monday, there was an expectation that spy camera photos and smoking gun audiotapes would be played for an enthralled gallery.

So I guess I'm not as devastated by the pace of the trial, as I am by the inability of my PC to catch a solid stream of the video. On the other hand, Judge Bridges sure sounds disappointed. At one break he wished he could "run off" with Ms. Way, King's ballot supervisor. I'm not sure whether the implication was that he wanted the opportunity to go purge himself or begin drinking heavily, or if he was trying to ask Ms. Way, "Whaddya doin' afta?" In any case, apparently he lost his mojo for either, since by 11AM he was telling the assembled, "I'm getting tired." That unnerved Rossi counsel Harry Korrell: "I don't take that as a good sign." If he was being serious, it might represent the first time the Rossi team has used its power of observation to pick up on the fact that Bridges sounds not at all enthused by their case.

Backing up to 9AM, the day began with Korrell examining Way, who is one half of the notorious form-falsifying team, and who is currently on suspension. She looked and sounded as if she hadn't slept since the machine recount, and manifested quite a few confused looks and shrugs--but mostly with regard to understanding the specific questions Korrell was asking. As you might expect, counsel was attempting to use Way's testimony to bolster both prongs of their case--that the process was a mess, and that King officials jiggered it towards a Gregoire victory.

Way, like Huennekens before her, didn't really bite--although her responses were more wearied than defensive, as the former's were at times. Going easier on her is likely intentional; Rossi's team wants to impugn the top dogs at King, and Way is just a pawn. But the best he could get out of her in the way of damning evidence,  was this exchange in reference to knowledge about the falsified entry, keeping in mind that Huennekens had testified he didn't know when he reviewed the form:

Korrell: "Did you believe Mr. Huennekens knew?"
Way:  (pause...) "...I thought he knew."

If that's the smoking gun, I'd let my five year old hold it.

Democrat counsel Durkan, for her part, tried to downplay Way's involvement in anything remotely involved with the production or verification of the documents: "Were you busy doing other things, instead of checking all the ballot slips for typos?" and "Is the person entering the data for these forms the person filling out the slips?"* At this point, having gotten no's from Way, Durkan objected to the use of the ballot tracking spreadsheets, calling them unfit to be considered business records on the basis of hearsay twice removed. Bridges had none of that, replying that if the court used Ms. Durkan's test, there'd be no evidence allowed at all. Nevertheless, it seemed as if Durkan was able to divorce Way's actions (or inactions) from any perception of sinister intent or truly direct knowledge of what data were going into in the summaries.

Korrell continued with a litany of math problems for Way to solve, going over a number of precincts and pointing out the errors and discrepancies, usually numbering no more than two or three--for example, "So, this number should be 15, but they wrote down 12?" Let the record show that Way seemed to have passed 2nd grade math. It was at this point that Bridges announced his growing somnolence, and Korrell desisted.

Two other items, one relevant, one interesting. At one point in Durkan's cross, she asked Way if in fact Pierce County had not also experienced problems similar to the ones that she and Way were currently discussing. That brought immediate objection from Korrell (presumably on grounds of hearsay/incompetency to answer), which was sustained, and Durkan moved on. And in a pause between questions, Way suddenly exclaimed, "There's a spider...I'm afraid of spiders." I wish I'd had the video feed at that point, because there was some minor commotion. Once settled, Durkan restarted her cross with, "Now, Miss Muffett..." Best ad-hoc laugh of the trial so far, IMO.

Examination of Way finishes up after lunch, and then presumably the Frye hearing on statisticial methodology will begin. We'll have a full wrapup tonight.

*Closely paraphrased, but not directly quoted

Update 236pm--
Way has been excused, and the relief is evident in her "thank you." Before stepping down, Bridges had his own set of questions for Way, which I'll detail this evening.

In the space before the Frye hearing, Bridges is now asking about the driver's license records that King hopes to use to suggest "missing signature" ballots should be counted, trying to get official copies, and make sure no privacy laws were being broken. Implication--that he's willing to at least consider the idea? We'll see. Also, I've just heard before an announced recess that it appears Clark Benson will be next on the stand, making the beginning of the Frye proceeding today seem unlikely.

Update 3pm--
Benson has started testifying...and it strikes me as "duh," since he's a witness on data methodology, which means this IS the start of the Frye hearing. Nevermind...!

--TJ

Comments

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tj,

Something tells me you and I share a similar sense of humor. Nice narrative. Hope your WEB video feed gets better, it would be interesting to hear about physical expressions by the players.