From the article: These are the specific allegations made in the affidavits, first reported by WSOC in Charlotte and also obtained by Vox: One voter says a yo

From the article: 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. -- 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.