Let's clear up one misconception first -- affidavits are not, by definition, evidence. It is a statement made by an individual that can be used as evidence but isn't necessarily evidence. For example, I can make an affidavit that the moon is made of green cheese. Does that mean the moon is actually made of green cheese, is it any type of evidence the moon is made of green cheese? I can even use it in a court case, where I seek access to information about NASA, to expose how they are hiding the true facts about the moon. Despite my trying to use that affidavit as "evidence," it still is not evidence, it is merely a statement of how I believe the moon is made of green cheese -- and the court will ignore it, as they should. They won't hold an evidentiary hearing on that, based on the fact that I did not present any actual evidence to support my claims.
One more correction, affidavits tend not to be made "under penalty." First, in most cases the are merely notarized to show you made the statement -- that I didn't make the statement and forge your name on to it. Some of this will depend on state law. Next, even if made under oath, it doesn't stop me from lying -- much less being incorrect. People are not charged with making false affidavits, it just doesn't happen in the real world. The issue is, it is too hard to prove intent -- and the prosecutor has to prove you were lying, which is a tough standard to meet; when all you have to do is claim you must have been mistaken.
Again, go back to my example above. The court has to have sufficient reason to believe an evidentiary hearing is warranted. In the various court cases pursued by the Trump campaign, the courts found that that burden wasn't met. The court looked at and examined those affidavits you keep talking about -- yes, they were examined and were even discussed in the judges' ruling. I've posted several examples from the rulings, where a judge goes through the affidavits and explains why they are not evidence -- and that often, various affidavits contradict each other.
One example is in Arizona, where a large number of affidavits (I believe hundreds) were submitted over being told to use a Sharpie to fill out the ballot, and the ink bled through. The problem, there was no issue using Sharpies -- it was what the Maricopa County recommended for marking ballots, and it can be demonstrated they were saying that before the election and is recommended by the manufacturer of the counting machines. Additionally, they note the ballots are "offset" to ensure that, if ink bleeds through, it does not matter. So, to take those affidavits, the only thing they are evidence of is that the election was conducted properly.
I remember talking about one of the Michigan affidavits here and how the judge went through various affidavits and showed why they were not evidence of any type of "fraud" -- many merely were, again, show that the election procedures were followed (such as ballots being brought in by a back door, when that was the door that all the ballots were supposed to come in through). Seriously, go and find the judges decisions and read through them.
On top of that, the Trump campaign appealed almost all of these cases -- so if they felt there was something in the affidavits that warranted a closer look, they could order the original judge to have an evidentiary hearing. Yet, in all these cases that the Trump campaign filed, and then appealed, none of the appeals courts ever found a mistake by the original judge, that they should have had an evidentiary hearing. And, remember, many of these were judges that are not only Republican, but judges that Trump appointed to the Bench.
Of course, since the courts are not evidence enough for you, that the affidavits just aren't the evidence you think they are, let's go to the DoJ. Pres. Trump specifically requested AG Barr review the election and all the affidavites. Under Barrs direction and supervision, the FBI and DoJ both examined the affidavits. After they were done, Barr announced that there was no evidence of wide spread fraud. Now, remember, this is an individual Trumps specifically asked to investigate and that Trump has trust in -- and still talks glowingly of today.
And this is also ignoring the various local law enforcement groups, such as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation(GBI), that investigated the affidavits and "wrongdoing." Of course, none of these local/state law enforcement groups have found any wrongdoing and many of them are headed by Republicans. Then you have the various Governors and Secretaries of State that investigated, ensured procedures were followed and determined the results were true and correct -- and many of these are Republican.
I'm not aware of "counting stopped in the middle of the night in the major swing state cities." I'm aware of counting that allegedly stopped in Fulton County, Georgia -- which is merely one of the counties that make up Atlanta. There may have been another one but, from what I recall, all the others continued counting. I do know some of the smaller counties stopped counting but, since those counties tended to go for Trump, you don't seem to care about why they stopped counting.
There was a broken water main in the arena in Fulton County -- that is not in question and has been verified. Granted, it occurred in the morning and allegedly it did cause many of the counters to go home early -- from my understanding it was because they had been called in early, both to ensure no ballots were damaged by flooding caused and to make sure they remain secure, because of the water main break. And, from what I saw, the various media outlets investigated and found there wasn't really any story to report -- that they had a water main break and other issues that day.
Now, you can bring up your affidavits about how people were told they were done counting for the day. And I can see that. A large number of workers leave, so an observer asks why they are leaving; the response is "we're done counting for the day" -- the we referring to the counters that are leaving, not meant to mean that Fulton County is going to quit counting. I'll admit, I've not looked into this particular issue closely (I've mostly looked at Pennsylvania and Michigan). At the same time, I'll remidn you that the GBI specifically looked into this, it has been brought up in court cases, and the DoJ looked into it and none of them found an issue.
Why? Show many any election where the state has made all this available publicly. Then, on top of that, consider that making all of this public (beyond maybe ballots) likely will violate federal privacy laws, not to mention the expense of scanning all of this information and hosting it on the Internet.
Instead, the reporters/media have observed the original election. They were present for the recounts. They were present for the audits. And, from their own observation they didn't see any issues. They know that other Independent observers saw no real issues in the voting and counting, and they know law enforcement, both state and federal, found no issues in their investigations. On top of that, they know the people directly responsible for running a fair election -- the Governors and Secretaries of State -- found no issues and certified the election results.
I daresay this is the most scrutinized election in American History, as things stand now. And, aside from Pres. Trump (who has claimed Fraud in every election, including the one where he was elected as President, since he started running for President) and a few of his hardcore supporters, no one is seeing any evidence of fraud that would have changed the results of the election. In fact, if you believe Republican Sen. Sasse, none of the Senators (and the House members he knows of), believe there was any fraud; instead their objections were all for political reasons.
The reason people state there is no evidence of some massive election fraud is because there actually is no real evidence.
