On January 28, the FBI executes a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Management Center. The document on the left is the first page of the affidavit from FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans.

A sworn affidavit released by a U.S. federal court on the 10th (local time) states that the FBI has "confirmed" significant irregularities in the vote tabulation methods in Fulton County, the largest county in Georgia, following the 2020 general election, and is investigating whether these irregularities were an intentional attempt to violate federal election laws.

FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans submitted the affidavit to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia last month to establish the basis for an operation that seized approximately 700 boxes of 2020 Georgia election ballots from a warehouse in the Atlanta area, following a tip from Kurt Olsen, White House Director of Election Integrity.

The affidavit includes information gathered by the FBI from interviews with about a dozen anonymous witnesses who have recounted various allegations dating back to the contentious 2020 Georgia state election, in which Joe Biden was declared the winner over Donald Trump by a narrow margin.

Evans stated, "While some allegations have been proven false, others have been substantiated through admissions from Fulton County and other means," adding, "This warrant application is part of an ongoing FBI criminal investigation into whether some of these improper actions were intentional violations of federal criminal law."

Evans' affidavit, dated January 28, outlined five major areas of irregularities under investigation, as follows:

1. Fulton County admitted that there are no scanned images for either the 528,777 ballots counted in the initial tabulation or the 527,925 ballots counted in the first statewide recount, which represents a significant loss of evidence.

2. Fulton County confirmed that some ballots were scanned multiple times during the recount process. The affidavit stated, "Instances of duplicate unique markings within ballot images provided in response to public records requests have been identified."

3. During the risk-limiting audit, auditors manually counting votes reported vote totals that did not match the actual number of votes within specific ballot batches. According to the affidavit, "The State Performance Review Committee reported that Secretary of State investigators confirmed inaccurate ballot batch counts during the risk-limiting audit."

4. Auditors participating in the risk-limiting audit reported counting absentee ballots that appeared to have no folds or creases, which are necessary for ballots to be mailed to voters or returned in sealed envelopes requiring a voter's signature.

5. On the deadline for reporting recount results, Fulton County reported a total of 511,343 votes recounted, which was 17,434 fewer votes than the initial count. "The following day, Fulton County reported a total of 527,925 votes counted," the affidavit noted.

According to the BBC, the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Georgia was ultimately certified with Biden winning by a margin of 12,670 votes, or 0.25%. This result was confirmed through three recounts and verifications in the state at the time.

However, allegations of election fraud have continued to surface, and the findings confirmed through this FBI search indicate that a larger number of ballots were problematic than initially reported in the final count.

Just The News reported in 2021 that a contractor dispatched to Fulton County on behalf of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger recorded widespread chaos, errors, and irregularities in the vote tabulation process, a fact cited in this affidavit. Governor Brian Kemp has also requested an investigation into vote counting errors in Fulton County based on information from Just The News.

Despite these concerns, Raffensperger maintained that these issues did not affect the outcome of Biden's victory over Trump in Georgia.

However, "Witness 4," one of the witnesses named in the FBI affidavit and a key aide to Raffensperger, admitted to the FBI that he was unaware of some of the confirmed irregularities and acknowledged that they could be problematic.

"The 2020 Georgia Secretary of State's Election Management Director was unaware that the number of actual ballots did not match the number of ballot images. Witness 4 stated that such discrepancies could be problematic, but did not know if anyone went back to verify," the affidavit stated.

"Witness 4 testified that issues like image discrepancies were not audited during the manual recount process. He stated that the images were merely duplicates, and that a discrepancy between the actual ballots and the voter count would be a bigger issue. The problem lies with the ballot and voter count itself rather than the images," he added.

By Sung Ku Hong, Chief Correspondent, NNP USA / Special Dispatch NNP info@newsandpost.com