Thread by @TomDreisbach

The disciplinary trial of John Eastman is continuing today in State Bar Court of California.

We're expecting additional testimony by elections expert Justin Grimmer, who is testifying for the State Bar.

You can watch the livestream here: calbar.zoom.us/j/97985435232

Unfortunately, it sounds like Judge Yvette Roland's microphone is off and we can't here her. I'm emailing the State Bar to notify them.

Nevermind, they just fixed it! Thanks to the State Bar Court for that.

And once again, apologies for my typos ("here" vs. "hear"...sigh). I'm working quickly to share notable moments for the trial, so sometimes my spelling slips.

To start, Judge Roland is addressing Eastman's objections to certain aspects of Grimmer's testimony on procedural grounds.

So far, Judge Roland seems inclined to overrule the objection.

Alright, now we're getting back to Justin Grimmer's testimony, which started yesterday.

Grimmer is a Stanford political science professor and a Hoover Institution fellow, who has authored several articles debunking election denial claims.

Grimmer is now addressing claims that Eastman submitted about people serving felony sentences allegedly voting in 2020.

Grimmer says this analysis (see below) would turn up a lot of false positives, because it matched two databases with just first name, last name and birth year.

To do this kind of analysis accurately, Grimmer says you would need to match people with address, full date-of-birth, gender, and full name.

Otherwise, he says, this technique will cause overestimates of people allegedly ineligible to vote.

Grimmer says the analysis Eastman relied on also inflated the number of dead people who allegedly voted, because it also just used first name, last name, and birth year.

Grimmer says the Eastman analysis also reached an inaccurate conclusion about people who improperly registered to vote before they were 17 years old.

Initially, the analysis claimed about 66,000 people fit in this category. They later revised that down to around 2,000.

But even the revised number is wrong, Grimmer says, because it would include people who registered to vote when they were minors, even if those people were adults when they actually voted.

Grimmer is now addressing the claim of a Georgia Tech student, who said someone had voted in her name.

Grimmer looked into this case and found that no absentee ballot was cast in her name, and she actually voted early in person.

Grimmer addresses another claim:

A Georgia woman claimed her dead father, Walter Holst, was recorded as voting multiple times.

Grimmer says the issue was that his widow, Mary, was registered as "Mrs. Walter Holst," leading to the confusion.

Grimmer says he examined several other affidavits from individual voters claiming irregularities, but found nothing that would indicate voter fraud or malfeasance.

Grimmer says even a layperson would be able to evaluate many of the fraud claims and statistical claims of election "anomalies" and determine they were false.

The State Bar is making the case that Eastman should have known the election fraud claims he pushed were nonsense.

Eastman's attorney, Randy Miller, objects to this line of questioning.

Judge Roland overrules.

We're now taking a 10-minute break.

Eastman's attorney Randy Miller will then cross-examine Justin Grimmer.

We're back.

Eastman's attorney Randy Miller asks Grimmer if there were "incidences of voter fraud in the 2020 election."

Grimmer testifies there were a "small number of incidents."

Miller asks if there were "voting irregularities" in the 2020 election.

Grimmer testifies there were "allegations of voting irregularities" in the election, and there were some illegal ballots cast, as has happened in every U.S. election.

Miller: "Did you perform your own investigation to determine the accuracy of the Georgia election in 2020?"

Grimmer testifies that he did an "extensive analysis" of claims made by Matt Braynard as part of the Trump lawsuits and found "basic statistical mistakes."

Miller is pressing Grimmer on whether he performed his own investigation into the accuracy of the Georgia election.

Grimmer says he assessed claims of voter fraud in Georgia, as well other states across the country.

Miller: "You're not here to testify about the actions a reasonable lawyer must take" to evaluate expert witness testimony, correct?

Grimmer says, yes, he is not an attorney.

Miller is now asking about this article Grimmer co-authored.

"No evidence for systematic voter fraud: A guide to statistical claims about the 2020 election"

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Miller notes that the paper specifically addressed some tweets about the election from Charlie Kirk.

Miller asks Grimmer whether Eastman relied on tweets from Charlie Kirk in his legal filings or response to the State Bar.

Grimmer says he did not.

With this line of questioning, Miller seems to be making a case that Grimmer's article was debunking claims that other people (not Eastman) made - e.g. Charlie Kirk, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell.

Miller asks Grimmer about an analysis by Bryan Geels.

Geels' claims were included in lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign, and is on Eastman's witness list for this case.

From the Geels analysis:

This information was later updated, reducing the number of allegedly improper registrations from around 66,000 to around 2,000 and then around 700.

Miller asks if that final number is accurate.

Grimmer says he has no basis to make that assessment, but in any case, if someone improperly registered as a minor, their registration would still have been automatically updated whenever they updated their driver's license.

After a late lunch break, the case against John Eastman is about ready to resume. Due to scheduling issues, today's the last day of proceedings for several weeks, and the case won't pick back up until late August.

The State Bar calls Jonathan Brater as a witness.

Brater is a Michigan elections official.

The State Bar is building on several lawsuits that came before, including the Dominion v Fox News litigation.

So Brater, the Michigan elections official, has already addressed several of these election denial claims in sworn testimony that the State Bar is now referencing.

Brater notes that Trump actually got a higher percentage of Detroit’s votes in 2020 compared to 2016.

Brater is going through and debunking a series of allegations of misconduct or irregularities in the 2020 election.

He says some allegations involved people jumping to wild conclusions, like assuming a TV news truck unloading equipment was actually secretly delivering ballots.

Brater: “Election administration in Michigan is heavily decentralized and heavily bipartisan.”

Brater: even if you doubt the electronic voting machines, “we have paper ballots that can be reviewed for the entire election.”

Brater: “There’s simply no way that the types of claims being made about the 2020 election could be true.”

Now to cross-examination by Randy Miller.

Miller starts by asking about litigation brought against the state of Michigan regarding signature verification for absentee ballots.