Thread by @alanfeuer

Right now a hearing is underway in Arizona involving a lawsuit about one of the stranger voting controversies of the election so far: SharpieGate.
Here’s a quick primer on the case.

Late last week, the Trump campaign filed suit in Maricopa County claiming that “systemic poll worker error” led to thousands of votes not being counted for Trump in Arizona.

There were two broad claims: 1) that people who used Sharpies for their ballots suffered “ink bleed” causing problems w/voting machines. The campaign claims when Sharpie ballots were rejected, poll workers tricked voters into overriding the system and disqualifying their ballots.

The suit is based on affidavits from two AZ voters who claim they suffered this harm and from a few GOP poll observers who claim they saw the same thing happen to others. From this the campaign extrapolates that Trump lost 1000s of votes.

Lawyers for Arizona have dismissed the case in court papers as “a conspiracy theory,” noting that the state AG conducted an inquiry into the matter and found that the use of Sharpies in Maricopa “did not result in disenfranchisement.”

The state’s lawyers also say the plaintiffs didn’t do anything to address the problems on Election Day itself and waited an unreasonably long time to file their suit.
(Note: This is actually the SECOND SharpieGate suit; the first was dropped.)

“This lawsuit should be seen for what it is,” lawyers for the AZ Democratic Party wrote in their own court papers. “A last-ditch effort by an unsuccessful presidential campaign to sow doubt and mistrust in a legitimately conducted election.”

The parties are making opening statements now.
I'll being making periodic updates as the hearing continues.
Stay tuned.

A lawyer for Maricopa is now saying that 99.998% of the total ballots cast for president in the county were accurately recorded.
"The allegation of systematic error cannot possibly be proven," he said.

Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, just said: "This is not a fraud case. We are not alleging fraud. We are not saying anyone is trying to steal the election."
Rather, he's saying there were "good faith errors" in the count.

The line into the hearing seems to have gone silent. Stand by.

Hearing has gone into recess as the techs figure out the phone situation.

The Maricopa County hearing into SharpieGate is tentatively set to resume at 230 EST after technical difficulties.

And....we're back in Maricopa County.

The judge, Daniel Kiley, just said his tech team told him that an "external influence" caused the public access line to go down.
No explanation of what that actually means...

Scott Jarrett, a Maricopa County election official, is saying that a) Sharpie ink can in fact bleed on ballots but b) an "overvote" (or tainted ballot) occurs only if a second oval is filled in 35% or more.

We are, at present, literally discussing ink drying.

Jarrett just testified that out of more than 165,000 votes cast in Maricopa County for president this year, 191 were potentially tainted "overvotes."

We are talking about 191 votes here.

One of the Trump campaign's witnesses who is claiming that her Sharpie vote for the president wasn't counted just testified that she came to that conclusion after she cast her vote from her talking to her family, other voters, some attorneys and from her "research online."

A second Trump campaign witness claiming problems w/a Sharpie vote testifies he wasn't sure his vote went through on Election Day--and still isn't sure--but didn't say anything at the time.
"I didn't want to stir up a commotion," he said.

Asked whether he knows if his vote for Trump was counted or not, the witness says he doesn't.

"I don't know if the machine counted it w/the error...I don't know if it was officially counted or not."

Ok, so now the Trump campaign put a poll watcher on the stand hoping he would allege Sharpie improprieties.

And yet...he said that he didn't notice anything wrong on Election Day and would have said something if he did.
"At the time," he said, "everything looked normal."

A 2nd poll watcher testifies that several times she saw a poll worker hitting either a RED or GREEN button on voting machine for voters w/o 1st getting permission. (Which seems like pro-Trump evidence.)
But under cross she admits she didn't know what those buttons actually did.

This is getting a bit painful.
Another voter says a tabulator spat out her Sharpie vote w/an error message. She & a poll worker reviewed it, tried again.
On advice of the worker, she then pushed the green (go) button.
Did she have any reason to think her vote wasn't counted?
No.

Another Trump witness:
Says his Sharpie ballot got an error message.
The poll worker told him not to worry & hit green button for him.
He fears his vote for Trump wasn't counted.
Why?
"Based on what I believe w/the machine showing an error...I don't trust machines that much."

A peek behind the SharpieGate curtain:
A guy who built a website to solicit complaints in the case testifies he received about 600 initial submissions, screened out about half & focused on 140 or so.
Of those, half were tossed cuz they were "obviously fake" or used profanity.

Now the website guy is admitting that he and the Trump campaign lawyer ARE BUSINESS PARTNERS.
Dem lawyers asks if he's being paid to testify.
"Not that I know of," he says. "I haven't discussed it."
Is it possible you're being paid? lawyer asks.
"I'm not sure," he says.
Oof.

The Trump campaign has rested.

The Arizona and Democratic Party defendants have just called the Trump campaign's top election official in the state.
Let's see where this goes...

She says she had an open line of communications with election officials all day. But never worried about poll workers overriding a voter's decision.
She says she got some reports about voter confusion.
But...says she was totally satisfied about how the county handled the issue.

That's the campaign's top election official, mind you.

"I did not raise any issues about poll workers," she says--which is to say, the heart of this complaint.

So, an Arizona lawyer asks, you didn't believe there were systematic problems on Election Day, right?
"No, ma'am, I cannot say that."

Lawyer asks Trump campaign official:
Do you have ANY knowledge of ANY vote for Trump not being counted b/c of poll worker wrongdoing?
"I have knowledge of voters' *belief* their votes weren't counted."
But adds: "I don't know what the reason was."

"You have faith in the election system, right?" a lawyer for the state of Arizona asks the Trump campaign's top election official in the state.
"I do," she says.

After more than six hours, this Sharpie Gate hearing is nearing an end (thank god.)
Unclear if the judge will rule from the bench or wait and rule by written decision...

The judge in the Sharpie Gate case is taking this 5-hour hearing under advisement and will issue a decision in the near future.
Hearing adjourned. Out.
(Haaaaaaaa.....)