US intelligence officials on Friday announced that a video claiming to show voter fraud in Georgia is fabricated and created by ‘Russian influence actors,’ warning that foreign attempts to undermine election integrity could continue beyond the voting period.
They said that the purported video was a part of “Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans.”
The disputed 20-second video, which appeared on X Thursday afternoon, features someone claiming to be a Haitian immigrant discussing plans to cast multiple votes for Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia counties. The individual displays several alleged Georgia identification cards with varying names and addresses.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that “The video is obviously fake” and likely created by Russian trolls “attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the election.”
The FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence jointly stated that Russia is expected to generate and distribute more content aimed at undermining election trust and creating division among Americans before and after the election.
Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, said that the video’s characteristics match those of Storm-1516 (also known as CopyCop), a known Russian disinformation group that has produced several fake videos during this election.
The agencies also identified another Russian-made video falsely alleging “an individual associated with the Democratic presidential ticket of taking a bribe from a US entertainer,” though no further details were provided.
Earlier, the FBI and other federal agencies held Russia responsible for a video that falsely showed Trump mail-in ballots being destroyed in Pennsylvania.
