Video depicting voter fraud is 'Russian influence,' FBI says

A video purporting to depict voter fraud in Georgia is fake and the work of “Russian influence actors,” U.S. intelligence officials said Friday as they warned that foreign efforts to undermine faith in the integrity of next week’s elections may persist long after votes have been cast. The announcement that the video was fake represented an effort by the FBI and other federal agencies, four days before Tuesday’s elections, to combat foreign disinformation by calling it out rather than letting it spread for days unchecked. It follows a similar statement last week that also attributed to Russian actors a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania. The 20-second video, which began circulating on the social media platform X on Thursday afternoon, shows someone who describes himself as a Haitian immigrant talking about how he’s intending to vote multiple times in two Georgia counties for Vice President Kamala Harris. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Thursday night that the video is “obviously fake” and likely the product of Russian trolls “attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the election.” Intelligence officials echoed that finding Friday, saying the video was manufactured by “Russian influence actors” and was part of “Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans.” The intelligence community expects Russia, in the days before the election and weeks and months after, “to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans,” said the joint statement from the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.