There’s something very weird going on with this House election in North Carolina

These are the specific allegations made in the affidavits, first reported by WSOC in Charlotte and also obtained by Vox:

One voter says a young woman came to her house and asked for her absentee ballot because she was collecting them. The voter had made her choice for only two offices on the ballot, but still gave her ballot to the young woman, who said she would fill out the rest.

Another voter also says a young woman came to her house and claimed she was responsible for collecting absentee ballots. The voter filled out her ballot while the young woman waited; the woman then took the ballot, but never asked the voter to sign it and did not put it in a sealed envelope.

A third voter says she did not request an absentee ballot but received one in the mail anyway.

A fourth person says she saw unusual activity at a polling site: election results being run after polls closed on the last day of early voting and observed by people who were not elections judges, which she understood to be “improper.” The person said she also helped tabulate absentee ballots after the election that were quite worn and had “coding” written on them.

A fifth person, Dwight Sheppard, says he overheard people talking outside a polling station on Election Day who said a well-known local operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, Jr., would be paid a $40,000 bonus if Harris won the election.

In another affidavit — signed and witnessed, but not notarized — a sixth person said he actually talked to Dowless in April during the Republican primary, in which Harris upset sitting Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger, According to this person, Dowless said he was working on the absentee vote for Harris, that he had 80 people working for him, and that he accepted cash payments only from campaigns.

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What's the significance of a sworn affidavit? Are there penalties for making a false statement in sworn affidavit, and if so, what are they? I'm asking because I want to understand the significance / weight of presenting these sworn affidavits as evidence, and not to question the truthfulness of the statements being made. My thinking is that people wouldn't make a false statement if the cost of doing so is high, and I'm using this cost to discern if "something very weird is going on" or if this series of events is a string of coincidences.

One of many sources quoting David Lewis, one of the Republican politicians who made clear their intent:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/2018/08/2...

“I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” said Rep. David Lewis, a Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly, addressing fellow legislators when they passed the plan in 2016. “So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.”

He added: “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”

When voters went to the polls that fall, the 10-3 outcome was exactly as Lewis had predicted, even though Republican candidates won just 53 percent of the statewide vote.

>"... Early Thursday, Democrats made vague allegations of “possible irregularities.”

Late Thursday, WSOC TV, Channel 9, provided some elaboration on those details. “Channel 9 has obtained several affidavits out of Bladen County, North Carolina, [one of the eight counties in the district] voicing concerns about how the U.S. House District 9 race in November was handled,” WSOC reported.

Those affidavits, however, contained no offers of evidence but instead general speculation that something was off in the absentee ballot counts.

Democrats pounced on the unanimous, bipartisan vote of the State Elections Board not to certify the election.

…"

http://tennesseestar.com/2018/11/30/are-democrats-trying-to-...