Russians behind fake video of ballots being destroyed, US officials say

AFP | Washington                                             

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Russian actors were behind a viral video falsely showing mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in the swing state of Pennsylvania, US officials said Friday, amid heightened alert over foreign influence operations targeting the upcoming election.

The video, which garnered millions of views on platforms such as the Elon Musk-owned X, purports to show a man sorting through mail-in ballots from the state’s Bucks County and ripping up those cast for Trump.

On Thursday, the Bucks County Board of Elections declared the video as “fake,” saying that the envelope and other materials depicted in the footage are “clearly not authentic materials” belonging to or distributed by them.

In a joint statement on Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the video was part of a Russian disinformation operation.

“Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania,” the statement said.