US officials say election disinformation is linked to Russia

By ERIC TUCKER and ALI SWENSON

WASHINGTON (AP) – A video purporting to depict voter fraud in Georgia is fake and the work of “Russian influencers” determined to undermine confidence in the integrity of next week’s presidential election, US intelligence officials said Friday.

The announcement that the video was fake represented an effort by the FBI and other federal agencies, four days before Tuesday’s election, to combat foreign disinformation by calling it in rather than letting it spread unchecked for days. It follows a similar statement last week as well attributed a widely circulated video to Russian actors falsely representing postal ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania.

The 20-second video in question, which began circulating on social media platform X on Thursday afternoon, shows someone who describes himself as a Haitian immigrant talking about how he plans to vote multiple times in two Georgia counties for Vice President Kamala Harris.

He displays several purported Georgia IDs with different names and addresses, and an Associated Press review of information on two of the IDs confirms that they do not match any registered voters in Gwinnett or Fulton counties, the two counties that mentioned them.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Thursday night that the video is “obviously fake” and likely the product of Russian trolls “trying to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the election.”

Intelligence officials echoed that finding on Friday, saying the video was made by “Russian influencers” and was part of Moscow’s “broader effort to raise baseless questions about the integrity of the US election and fuel divisions among Americans.”