re: Tillis applauds jury’s rejection of Justice Department’s attempt to indict Democrats

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ATLANTA — An FBI affidavit used to seize 2020 election ballots from Georgia's Fulton County omitted key findings from state investigators that undercut many questions about wrongdoing, an NPR analysis finds.

President Trump and his allies sought unsuccessfully to overturn that election, pushing baseless claims of widespread fraud. Fulton County's 2020 ballots were counted three separate times, with the results affirmed.

The affidavit — written by FBI Special Agent Hugh Raymond Evans and unsealed Tuesday — led to a judge signing off on a search warrant of Fulton County's elections hub, just outside Atlanta. The FBI executed that search warrant on Jan. 28, seizing more than 650 boxes of ballots and other 2020 election materials.

Yet the FBI's justification for seizing materials from more than five years ago relies on misleading claims of wrongdoing that were already investigated in detail by state law enforcement.

The claims largely align with allegations found in three cases presented to the Georgia State Election Board. Reports obtained by NPR show that investigators with the Georgia secretary of state's office found isolated examples of Fulton County election workers violating rules and procedures, but ultimately those errors did not affect the county's accurate tally.

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State investigators already debunked claims of "defects"

The FBI investigation, according to the affidavit, is focused on five alleged "deficiencies or defects" with the election and the subsequent tabulation: missing images of ballots, ballots that were scanned multiple times, inconsistent vote counts during a hand-count audit, ballots that could have been improperly inserted into the totals and changing vote totals during a machine recount.

Of the five, NPR's review of state investigative files found only one claim that was "partially substantiated" by law enforcement who are trained election investigators — that some batches of ballots were scanned twice during a Trump-requested recount.

But ultimately, a 2024 report reads, "These investigative findings do not affect the accuracy of the results of the 2020 General Election in Fulton County, which were confirmed as accurate by both the [Risk-Limiting Audit] and the Recount."

In that same case, investigators found that the individuals who filed the complaint — Joe Rossi and Kevin Moncla — used incorrect calculations and records not involved in tallying results to make claims about missing images and tabulator tapes and changing vote totals.

Rossi's complaint matches the description of a redacted Witness 1 in the affidavit, which highlights the fact that investigations were opened, but not the conclusion that almost all of the claims were unfounded.

State law at the time also did not require counties to maintain ballot images as records. A 2021 omnibus bill that made numerous changes to Georgia elections added a requirement that ballot images be made publicly available.

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