The FBI says Russians created a fake video showing the destruction of mail-in ballots from Bucks County

By Melissa Goldin, Mike Catalini and Ali Swenson, The Associated Press

A screenshot of the fake ballot from the video. Photo credit: X

Russian actors filmed a widely shared video that falsely shows mail-in ballots for former President Donald Trump being destroyed in Bucks County, U.S. officials said Friday.

A video that showed pro-Trump mail-in ballots apparently being destroyed in a Philadelphia suburb quickly spread on social media Thursday afternoon.

U.S. officials said in an FBI statement that they believe the video was “fake and amplified” by Russian actors. The officials say it is 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 in a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Calls of voter fraud followed closely behind.

Within three hours of the video’s release Thursday, Bucks County election officials countered the video and identified it as fake.

“The envelope and materials depicted in this video are clearly not authentic materials owned by or distributed by the Bucks County Board of Elections,” a statement released by the board said Thursday.

This latest claim affecting a key county is an example not only of attempts to influence voters in the final weeks of a contentious election, but also of how election officials have learned over the past four years to move quickly against false narratives.

Since 2020, distrust of the electoral process has taken hold among many Americans, creating an additional challenge for state and local officials who must not only administer elections but also continually explain and emphasize the safeguards in place to protect the vote.

Election officials across the country have prepared for the onslaught of false claims in recent years, from conducting worst-case scenario exercises to supporting law enforcement emergency procedures to posting proactive fact checks on their websites. Many have also increased transparency with the public and opened their doors to all-access tours in the hope that it will debunk some of the most damaging conspiracy theories.

The Bucks County video isn’t the only case where that work paid off. When AI-generated robocalls targeted Democratic voters in New Hampshire just days before the January primary, state authorities quickly issued statements and launched investigations that ultimately led to criminal charges and fines for the person responsible.

Disinformation experts say the Bucks County video signals a trend likely to intensify in the days leading up to Election Day — insidious disinformation, sometimes from foreign sources, aimed at undermining public trust in the electoral process.

According to Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, who has studied the group closely, this particular video is “almost certainly” linked to a Russian disinformation network called Storm-1516, or CopyCop.

The user who popularized the video on X was an early amplifier of several other narratives from that network, he said. This included a fake video distributed earlier this month containing unsubstantiated allegations against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. The user also expanded on the very first narrative that Linvill’s team tracked from Storm-1516 in August 2023.

The style and appearance of the latest video is consistent with other videos on the network, including the use of a Black actor, Linvill said.

This has long been a trend in fake videos from Russia, said Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who studies Russian disinformation. She said the video’s use of a black actor with an accent was intended to inflame existing divisions on American soil.

“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 deleted his original post and shared several posts from other accounts debunking the video as fake.

America PAC, a super-political action committee run by the billion-dollar . 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 must wait until 7 a.m. ET on Election Day before they can begin processing mailed ballots and prepare them for counting.

Other clues included the dark green color on the left side of the outer envelopes – it’s actually more of a Kelly green – and the sheen of the inner and outer envelopes, which actually have a 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.

Prosecutors initially investigated the video with the Yardley Borough Police Department.

Schorn declined to describe how authorities reached their conclusion, citing concerns that later fraudsters might improve their tactics. She said the FBI immediately began the investigation.

Schorn said her office has assigned two attorneys 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 uses the same mail-in voting process,” 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.”

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

Neither the origin of the video nor its intent have been confirmed.

The quick response to the video was possible because, according to Schorn, people spoke up. She added that she believes this incident shows that officials are prepared for what could come and hopes it “continues like this.”

“I don’t blame Americans for wanting to be assured that the system is trustworthy,” she 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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