Physicist and auditor John Droz testified all day Thursday in the ongoing disbarment trial of Donald Trump’s former attorney and constitutional scholar, John Eastman. California Disciplinary Court Judge Yvette Roland, who contributed to Democrats while on the bench, spent a large portion of the day successfully attempting to keep Droz’s investigative reports into the 2020 election and his testimony from being admitted into evidence. Some of his testimony that was struck from the record afterward discussed a report that attorney Jesse Binnall delivered to Congress, laying out what he found as 130,000 incidents of voter fraud in Nevada’s 2020 election.
Eastman’s attorney, Randy Miller, went over Droz’s background first. He has two bachelor’s degrees in science and in physics and math, a master’s in physics, and worked for years as a quality control engineer at GE in its microelectronics department, where he performed audits. He retired at age 34. He started a newsletter for like-minded individuals interested in the same types of issues as himself, such as election fraud. He noticed other “statistical PhDs” like himself who subscribed to his newsletter, so he asked four of them to assist him with investigative reports about the 2020 election anomalies.
Miller began questioning Droz (pictured above) about his report on Pennsylvania’s election. That report found “300,000 suspicious votes” and concluded that “scientific evidence” showed that “the reported results are highly unlikely to be an accurate reflection of how Pennsylvania citizens voted.” The “statistical anomalies” almost all occurred with votes for Joe Biden within 11 of the state’s 67 counties.
The California bar’s attorney, Duncan Carling, objected to his testimony and the report since Droz said he hadn’t done the analysis the other PhDs had. Droz said he double-checked some of their work and managed the project. Roland sustained the objection, and after Miller tried extensively to allow Droz to testify about it, Roland would not let him.
Miller moved on to Droz’s report on Michigan’s election, where his team reported 200,000 suspicious votes. It had similar findings to the Pennsylvania report but added, “The appearance of software manipulation is most troubling.”
Carling objected, and Roland sustained it. Miller pointed out that when Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer testified a few weeks ago for the California bar, he was allowed to talk about reports and press releases issued by his office that he did not personally author. Miller said every single one of those was admitted into evidence.
One of the objections Carling frequently made, which was sustained by Roland, was that Droz wasn’t an expert witness. Roland said his name was submitted too late into the trial to be considered an expert witness. However, judges can designate witnesses as experts at any time during a trial.
Miller next attempted to ask Droz about a report he and his team authored on vote spikes for Biden on election night in 2020. They found 26 large net vote dumps for Biden of 25,000 or more in 14 states suspected of election fraud. Some had more than one spike — Pennsylvania had four spikes. Not a single spike occurred in favor of Trump, the report found.
Droz said, “You don’t have to be an expert to see this is an aberration and way out of line.”
He said “vote spikes way out of norm” are what prompted him and his team to conduct the report. Roland struck his testimony.
Miller asked Droz about an email exchange with Eastman about his Pennsylvania report. Carling and Roland attempted to keep it out of evidence, but after a lengthy debate with Miller, they finally allowed the short exchange into evidence without the report.
In his email, Droz said, “There is no question that this information should result in a slam-dunk verdict to do an audited recount of the five Pennsylvania counties that we highlighted as the most egregious.”
Carling and Roland also tried to keep one of Droz’s emails he sent to his subscribers out of evidence. In it, he said his Michigan report was even better than his Pennsylvania report. “It is an even stronger case for voting irregularity than we made for Pennsylvania,” he emailed on November 29, 2020.
Miller asked Droz about his report recommending election integrity improvements, which he primarily authored. In it, he suggested 30 changes. Carling objected to admitting it into evidence or discussing it, claiming that Droz and his team of PhDs “had no expertise in identifying election vulnerabilities.”
Roland sustained his objection, stating that it wasn’t relevant to the charges against Eastman.
Droz attempted to discuss his report about the post-election audits. He said he found one audit of each of the three main types in three different country areas regarding the 2020 election. Even though Droz worked as an auditor, Roland refused to admit his report or testimony.
One of the audits Droz relied upon for his work was the forensic one conducted in Nevada by Binnall. Unlike the other investigations authored by Droz’s team, which were statistical analyses, that audit came up with actual numbers of “voter fraud,” Droz said. Roland refused to allow him to testify since it wasn’t his work.
When it was Carling’s turn to cross-examine Droz, he asked him what the political views were on his newsletter. Roland did not object. In contrast, whenever Miller asked any of the California bar’s witnesses, such as Matthew Seligman, what their political views were, Roland immediately jumped in and stopped him, claiming it wasn’t relevant.
Although Roland wouldn’t let Miller ask Droz about the election problems in Pennsylvania, she allowed Carling to. Droz said he thought the certification in Pennsylvania was a “rubber stamp” because of “the fact they did no meaningful audits” and his report showed “widespread anomalies.” He said the officials were “self-serving and suspect.”
On Friday, Kari Lake’s attorney Kurt Olsen, who also worked on the 2020 election challenges, is expected to testify. The trial, which is live-streamed, continues most of next week unless interrupted by the Georgia prosecution of Eastman. Next week, it begins at 10 a.m. PST on Tuesday.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “John Droz” by John Droz.
