According to the FBI, Russian actors created a fake video showing the destruction of pro-Trump mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania

YARDLEY, Pa. (AP) — Russian actors were behind a widely shared video that falsely depicted mail-in ballots Donald Trump will be destroyed in Pennsylvania, U.S. officials confirmed Friday.

The video spread on social media Thursday but was debunked by local election officials and law enforcement within three hours of the public reporting it.

US officials said in a opinion The FBI said they believe the video was “faked and amplified” by Russian actors. The officials said it was part of “Moscow’s broader efforts to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans.”

The information was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The Bucks County Board of Elections identified the video as fake on Thursday, saying the envelope and other materials in the video were “clearly not authentic materials owned or distributed by the board.”

The quick demolition of the staged video showed how the election workers proceeded have learned to move quickly to counter the false narratives of the last four years since a large portion of American voters became distrustful of the voting process in 2020. But the detailed replication of ballots in a key district in this year’s presidential campaign was a wake-up call showing how committed foreign actors are This undermines trust in the electoral process in the USA in the critical phase before the end of the vote.

The video showed a person appearing to go through mail-in ballots labeled as coming from Bucks County. The person, who was Black, appeared to tear up ballots marked “Trump” and leave ballots marked “Vice President Kamala Harris” alone.

Researchers closely studying Russian foreign influence campaigns had previously linked the video to a Russian disinformation network known as Storm-1516 or CopyCop. The network has already shared numerous posts Videos containing false claims about Harris and her vice president, Tim Walz.

Darren Linvill, the co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, who studies the group closely, said the user who popularized the Bucks County video on social platform X was an early repeater of several other narratives this network, including the first one his team ever tracked, in August 2023.

The style and appearance of the latest video is also consistent with other videos on the network, Linvill said.

According to Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has researched Russian disinformation, the video featured a black actor with a foreign accent — a choice that may have been intended to address existing divisions on American soil stir up.

It’s a common strategy in fake videos from Russia, she said.

“It tends to reinforce racism, right?” Lukito said. “There is already such a discussion about immigrants voting illegally or about immigration in general. Russian disinformation is absolutely taking advantage of that.”

After the video was debunked, the X user who popularized it deleted his original post and shared several posts from other accounts denouncing it as fake.

America PAC, a super political action committee launched by Billionaire X owner Elon Musk supports Trump in his bid for a second term, was one of those who denounced the video – a stark contrast to the misinformation often spread on X, often encouraged from Musk himself. The PAC declined a request for further comment.

There were several clues that immediately suggested the Bucks County video was fake. For example, under Pennsylvania law election officials have to wait to 7 a.m. ET on Election Day before they can begin processing mailed ballots and prepare them for counting.

Another clue was the dark green color on the left side of the outer envelopes – it’s actually more of one Kelly Green – and the shine of the inner and outer shells that actually have one matte finish. Additionally, none of the envelopes in the video had voters’ return addresses on them.

Citizen complaints from throughout Bucks County and a call from the Yardley Borough Police Chief alerted District Attorney Jennifer Schorn that the video was circulating online. Schorn was in a preliminary hearing on Thursday, and when she came out she saw the calls coming in about the video.

“Immediately at that point, we began investigating the video and concluded that it was, in fact, fake,” she said in a telephone interview Friday.

Schorn declined to describe how authorities reached their conclusion, citing concerns that later fraudsters might improve their tactics. She said her office has assigned two lawyers to review allegations of fraud and they will be on duty around the clock on Election Day.

Both Republicans and Democrats in the county called the video fake and expressed concerns about what impact it could have on the election.

“To us, this is disinformation designed to scare voters and discourage them from using mail-in ballots or on-demand voting, which use the same mail-in voting process,” said the Bucks County Republican Committee wrote in a statement. “We’ve seen dirty, underhanded tactics this year, from defacing signs to threatening letters to Trump supporters to this video trying to scare Bucks County voters.”

Pennsylvania Sen. Steve Santarsiero, chairman of the Bucks County Democratic Committee, called the video an attempt to “challenge our mail-in voting system and ultimately the outcome of the presidential election.” in a statement.

Officials said they were encouraged by the speed with which this disinformation and some other damaging falsehoods were exposed during this election cycle.

“I don’t blame the Americans at all for wanting to be assured that the system is trustworthy,” Schorn said. “I can’t blame that because unfortunately there are criminal organizations out there that undermine processes. I felt calm yesterday. I felt like it worked the way it was supposed to.”

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