Just got more info on duplicated ballots from SOS. There were 52,897 total in AZ.

Apache: 684
Cochise: 1,295
Coconino: 1,931
Gila: 504
Graham: 45
Greenlee: 17
La Paz: 19
Maricopa: 27,869
Mohave: 1,306
Navajo: 645
Pima: 14,406
Pinal: 853
Santa Cruz: 424
Yavapai: 131
Yuma: 2,768 https://twitter.com/mpolletta/status/1334563986327552000

That means that if the pattern seen in the sample of 1,626 duplicated ballots held, Trump would gain about 195 votes overall.

Wilenchik, AZ GOP lawyer, asks Jarrett to clarify whether hand count audits (which check accuracy of tabulation machines) can catch 'human error in the process of duplication or the process of electronic adjudication.' Jarrett says audit would check for electronic adj. errors.

After a brief recess, moving onto a new witness identified as a credentialed poll observer who oversaw part of the ballot duplication process. He says he saw two types of mistakes - one type made by the (bipartisan) duplication boards, other type made by Novus software.

First type, according to observer Thomas Lane, involved duplication team selecting the wrong candidate. He said he reported the errors to election workers, who made notes of issues to correct afterward.

Second type, Lane says, involves software 'prefill' issue Wilenchik referenced earlier. He says software never 'prefilled' Trump votes in the presidential race when reading ballots, and Kelly was always prefilled in the Senate race.

Lane testifies there were software prefill errors the duplication board didn't correct. How many? According to his notes, 'at least three.' Says he flagged those ballots to election officials. They made note of serial numbers for 'problematic' ballots in order to correct them.

Lane says he was not present for the correction of the mistakes he flagged. 'I can't say one way or another if the mistake was corrected or not, since I wasn't present for that.'

He says he continued to be concerned when he saw that 'of 100 duplicated ballots, there were two errors.' (This was the initial, ltd review ordered by judge in this case. It was later expanded by 1,526 ballots; seven more errors were found in those, affecting both candidates.)

'The other concern is that if - with a software as simple as prefilling what's clear as day, a bubble onto another bubble - a mistake can be made, then what kind of mistakes can be made in a tabulator that's reading a thousand ballots a minute?' Lane says.

'I have no way of knowing a vote is really being read the right way (by a tabulator) when these egregious mistakes were being made right in front of me on this duplication software,' Lane says.

He has not testified that election officials didn't correct the mistakes he flagged.

Next witness is Cheri Beltramo, also identified as a credentialed poll observer. She observed signature verification, adjudication and duplication processes.

What did she observe re duplication mistakes?

'I was behind a board and I noticed that on the original ballot the voter's intent was Trump and it was clicked as a Biden vote.'

Did she take action? 'Yes ... I went to one of the county employees there ... He came over quickly ... By that time, the team was already on to the next ballot, but he was able to get the # of the previous ballot and he went over to his main computer and he said, 'You're right.''

Hearsay objection overruled.

Beltramo continues: 'He said, 'That did go over incorrectly. I will just cancel that' & so it cancels in the system. It doesn't count, and the ballot goes back into the system to be reduplicated.'

She was one of four observers, she says: 2 R, 2 D.

She says there were about 14 boards/groups working on duplicating ballots when she and the three other observers were working.

Wilenchik asks: Did you observe any problems with the way the election board teams were working together?

'Yes. After catching those two mistakes rather quickly, I mentioned something to the supervisor. I said, there's like multiple mistakes being made here...'

'...It happened to be an evening shift (3-10:30). One of the workers seemed tired, and I said, I don't know if they need a break, to step away, but we have to make sure that the voter's intent is being captured here...'

'...Some (duplication) pairs would discuss out loud as they were going over the ballot, and this particular team was not really saying much and so (supervisor) spoke to them and said, 'You need to be talking out loud so we're catching any errors,'' Beltramo says.

Wilenchik returns to the prefill issue: Did you observe mistakes in what the software was guessing?

'That would be difficult for me to say if it was a mistake or not, because I don't know what the intent of the voter was,' Beltramo says. But says afterward that times when 'what I thought the machine was guessing...and what I would say the voter's intent was did not match.'

No cross-examination on Beltramo.

Onto next witness: Ken Sampson, another election observer. Says he served at MCTEC on two occasions.

1st time, observed folks bringing in results from tabulation machines from vote centers. 'They were stacking data cards, scanning them into the larger server & then basically making a compilation of those votes, then pushing them out to a larger server for people to see results.'

2nd time, observed duplication and electronic adjudication processes. Testifies that he wouldn't be able to determine if there were any mistakes re data cards, but saw mistakes during duplication process.

Sampson says he observed issues with software prefill during duplication. 'Across the board, I saw that those were wholly inaccurate. I spent a good amt of time walking from computer to computer looking over the workers' shoulders & (the software's guesses) weren't even close.'

Wilenchik is again emphasizing the observer to duplicator ratio, I assume in an attempt to suggest a bunch of mistakes went unnoticed.

Next witness is Lori Gray. She is also - you guessed it - a poll observer. She served at MCTEC at total of seven days, she says.

She says she floated between observing signature verification/curing room and the room where they did tabulation/adjudication/duplication.

She observed duplication for the majority of that time, she says. Also says she observed mistakes.

'I saw multiple times where they marked Biden for a ballot that said Trump on the original.'

'Or, there were instances where I saw - because that second ballot had some ovals filled in already, I don't know why, it seems like it should've been blank but it wasn't - sometimes they missed removing an oval, which caused an overvote at times,' Gray says.

'Also, during a process when they were adjudicating, they would have to decide what the intent of the voter was,' Gray says. 'For example, if the first option is President Trump, if there was an X in that box but it was also filled in as an oval, I saw it...counted as a no vote.'

Sorry, lost my connection for a few minutes. Gray is now being cross-examined by Sarah Gonski, an attorney representing the defendants in the case (Biden electors.)

Asked how many errors she observed, Gray says she didn't write that down. 'Most of the time I was focusing on waving down a supervisor to come and catch it.'

'Most of them were not caught, because if the workers were done with that ballot, it was gone unless I wrote down the ballot number, which I couldn't see because I was too far away,' Gray says. 'There were only two instances where we were able to catch it that I remember.'

Sounds like we're on to the last non-expert witness, Jan Bryant. A handwriting expert will follow her.

Bryant was also a poll observer. She says she served at two polling places and also at MCTEC. She observed ballot adjudication and duplication.

Asked if she observed mistakes, Bryant said she saw only minor ones.

'On the duplication boards ... I did not see mistakes. I did see one instance where there was a weird triplication of the printed copy of the ballots that were being duplicated.'

Court is taking a 15-minute recess. When everyone returns, judge wants to discuss whether attorneys believe this can be wrapped by 4:30 today as planned or whether they'll need to reconvene tomorrow.

We're back and onto another poll observer Linda Brickman with Maricopa Cty Republican Party, who says she witnessed 'quite a few' errors. She claims she saw Trump votes being tallied for Biden or canceled out as overvotes if people filled in 'Trump' circle & also wrote Trump in.

Cross-examination: Brickman asked if she, as a member of the duplication board, had an opportunity to correct problems. She says yes but that 'the machine didn't calculate it correctly.' Unclear what she means by not calculating correctly, as she's not referring to tabulators.

It sounds like she means that the machines were not accepting changes made by the duplication board she was part of (?)

Did you report this issue to anyone? 'I reported it to a number of people & that's why I got yelled at. My Democratic partner was in hysterics. She said she never would've believed unless she'd seen it w/ her own eyes that there were such incredulous problems with the machine.'

'I got yelled at the next day by my own supervisor...'I understand you caused problems over in the duplication room, you're trying to say that our machines weren't working.' I said I'm not trying to cause problems, I'm only telling the truth, your machines are not working.''

Now attorney for Maricopa County is in a very confusing back-and-forth with Brickman because she's talking about the duplication machine tabulating ballots when duplication machine don't tabulate.

I'll be honest, I lost the thread of that testimony. I will have to relisten & parse it.

Wilenchik calls his last witness: Laurie Hoeltzel, forensic document examiner with 20 yrs experience. She did handwriting analysis on the 100 mail-in envelopes reviewed by Ward's team Tues.

She says there were six signatures she was unable to make a conclusive determination for on the 100 mail-in ballots. She clarifies that that does not mean the signatures were invalid, just that she did not have enough signature examples to make a definitive determination.

Hoeltzel testifies that Rey Valenzuela, the expert retained by defendants, did not determine any signature matches to be inconclusive.

Here's what Desai, attorney for SOS, had to say about the discrepancy in her pretrial brief.

Continued:

And finally:

On cross-examination, attorney is going after Hoeltzel's credentials. He says she's previously been called out by courts for presenting herself as a PhD when she's not. She says she has always identified herself as a PhD candidate.

(I believe attorney is Bruce Spiva on behalf of Biden electors.)

He asks if Hoeltzel completed PhD coursework. She says yes.

Have you also held yourself out as having expertise in the areas of psychoneurology, Amazonian herbology, angel reading, Swish patterns and Ericksonian therapeutic hypnotic metaphors?

'For psychoneurology, that's what the doctoral candidacy is for,' she says.

So you're not studying for a PhD in forensic document examination, I take it?

'No, sir.'

Have you trained any elections officials?

'Yes, sir.'

And what did you train them in?

'Identification of voter registrations, class characteristics, general handwriting observation. It wasn't a very long training. And then I also created a training program for True the Vote.'

And True the Vote, that's a right wing group that attempts to disenfranchised voters?

'I have no idea what they do,' Hoeltzel says. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/27/fred-eshelman-sues-pro-trump-true-vote-election-lawsuits/6440272002/

You mentioned that you couldn't make a conclusive determination on six of the envelopes that you reviewed on Tuesday, is that right?

'Correct.'

You'd agree with me that you did not see any sign of forgery or simulation for any of those six signatures, is that right?

'Correct.'

You mentioned that you weren't able to come to conclusion because you would need additional exemplars in order to definitively determine whether the signature was a match, is that fair?

'Yes, sir.'

And that's according to the standard required of a forensic document examiner to reach that kind of a conclusion about it being a matching signature, correct?

'Correct.'

But you aren't making any claims about it being inappropriate for the elections officials to have counted those six votes that you couldn't make a conclusive determination were a match, correct?

'Correct.'

Tom Liddy for Maricopa County: You testified that you've been working in the area of signature examination since 2004, is that correct?

'I've had experience since I believe the mid 90s and then I've worked exclusively as a forensic document examiner since then.'

And has it been your experience that the more work you've done in this area, the more efficient you have become?

'Yes.'

And with that efficiency, would you agree with me, that would include being faster at making determinations?

(I believe he's trying to rebut the suggestion that defendants' document examiner wasn't on the up and up because he made determinations on signatures quickly.)

'Yes.'

No further questions for Hoeltzel.

The judge is out of time, so this will pick back up at 9:15 tomorrow morning.

It sounds like attorneys for the state and county are hoping for a decision immediately after the hearing concludes, but judge hasn't committed to that.

'I know these trials are hard,' judge says. 'We all do them in the election season, and usually it's over by now.'

'I really appreciate all the hard work you guys have put into this,' judge says. And with that, we're done for the day.