Federal agents seize 700 boxes of materials as affidavit details concerns over tabulator tapes, duplicate ballot images, and record retention in Georgia’s largest county.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A federal criminal investigation into the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, is examining alleged procedural irregularities involving ballot tabulation, record retention, and recount processes.
In a detailed Epoch Times report, the outlet described how the FBI is probing issues that surfaced in the county’s administration of the presidential election, including unsigned tabulator tapes, identical ballot images, and deleted digital files.
On Jan. 28, 2026, FBI agents executed a court-approved search warrant and seized approximately 700 boxes of election records from Fulton County, including physical ballots cast in 2020. An affidavit supporting the warrant alleges potential violations of federal law connected to election procedures. After the raid, the FBI disclosed additional information outlining the direction of its inquiry.
The affidavit, signed by FBI Special Agent Hugh Evans and publicly available here, states: “If these deficiencies were the result of intentional action, it would be a violation of federal law regardless of whether the failure to retain records or the deprivation of a fair tabulation of a vote was outcome determinative for any particular election or race.”
President Donald Trump had contested Georgia’s 2020 results, losing the state to then-President Joe Biden by fewer than 12,000 votes under the certified tally. Legal challenges failed, and Trump was later indicted in connection with his efforts to challenge the results; that case was dismissed after he returned to office in 2025.
The renewed investigation focuses on Fulton County, which encompasses much of the Atlanta metropolitan area. According to the affidavit, if known irregularities were intentional rather than administrative errors, they could constitute criminal violations under federal law.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who oversaw the 2020 election and is currently running for governor, has previously described many of the issues as administrative or human errors that did not affect the outcome. He has emphasized that Georgia conducted three counts of the ballots, including a full hand recount and a machine recount.
However, the affidavit indicates that some deficiencies occurred during those recounts.
Original Count Concerns
Under Georgia law, vote tabulation begins on election day. In Fulton County, more than half a million ballots were processed, nearly 90 percent of which were cast early or by mail. According to the affidavit, tabulator machines are required to print closing tapes listing the number of ballots scanned and votes recorded, signed by a poll manager and two witnesses.
Evans cited analysis by voting machine security expert Clay Parikh that more than 300,000 votes were associated with unsigned or missing tabulator tapes. Parikh also reported instances in which one tabulator appeared to generate closing tapes for multiple machines from different locations, with time stamps suggesting possible manipulation.
“The protective counters on at least five tabulator tapes from the same unit were identical,” Parikh found, according to Evans. “Some of the reported ballots scanned exceeded the protective counter number.”
Evans wrote that Parikh concluded the numbers could have been generated by inserting an unencrypted memory card into a machine to produce a closing tape, creating “an opportunity for the tabulation to be tampered with.”
The affidavit further states that most ballot images from the original in-person voting count were not preserved by the county. While state law did not mandate their retention at the time, Evans described the absence of images as “another impediment to ruling out non-criminal explanations for the activities during the election.”
Hand Recount Findings
After Raffensperger announced a risk-limiting audit on Nov. 11, 2020, ballots were recounted by hand and entered into an electronic auditing system known as Arlo.
Several witnesses cited in the affidavit reported observing unusual ballot batches during the recount. One described a group of 110 absentee ballots, 107 of which reflected votes for the same candidates with identical markings. The ballots were described as “pristine,” lacking folds typical of mailed ballots. While damaged ballots can be duplicated, Evans noted such duplicates must be clearly labeled and originals retained.
Additional testimony referenced ballot batches reportedly containing votes exclusively for one candidate, but later reviews by Governor Brian Kemp’s office found those batches included votes for multiple candidates. Kemp’s office verified complaints by chemical engineer Joseph Rossi and referred them to the State Election Board for review.
Raffensperger’s office concluded that discrepancies stemmed from data entry errors rather than misconduct.
Machine Recount Issues
A separate machine recount conducted Nov. 21, 2020, involved rescanning ballots. According to the affidavit, independent researchers analyzing ballot images identified more than 3,000 duplicates. Raffensperger’s office stated it could not determine whether those ballots were double counted and concluded there was no evidence of intentional misconduct.
Evans wrote that if duplicates were intentionally introduced, such action “would be an intentional tabulation of ballots in a false manner” and therefore criminal.
The affidavit also references more than 17,000 missing ballot images from the machine recount. While not legally required to retain them at the time, the researcher cited in the affidavit found it “suspicious that the missing image files were deleted at approximately the same time the duplicate votes began appearing in the system.”
Broader Oversight
The affidavit cites a report from Seven Hills Strategies, an Atlanta-based consultancy commissioned by the State Election Board to monitor pre-election processes in Fulton County. That report described absentee ballot handling as “extremely sloppy and replete with chain of custody issues,” noting instances of unattended ballots, unsealed bags and incomplete documentation. The report did not identify deliberate misconduct.
County officials have filed suit seeking the return of the seized materials, while the FBI continues reviewing the records.
To date, multiple recounts and state investigations have not uncovered definitive proof of fraud sufficient to alter the certified outcome of Georgia’s 2020 presidential results. The current federal probe is focused on determining whether procedural deficiencies identified in prior reviews may rise to the level of criminal violations if found to be intentional.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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