US officials say video falsely depicting voter fraud in Georgia linked to ‘Russian influence actors’

By ERIC TUCKER and ALI SWENSON

WASHINGTON (AP) — A video purporting to picture elector fraud successful Georgia is fake and the enactment of “Russian power actors” determined to undermine religion successful the integrity of adjacent week’s statesmanlike election, U.S. quality officials said Friday.

The announcement that the video was fake represented an effort by the FBI and different national agencies, 4 days earlier Tuesday’s election, to combat overseas disinformation by calling it retired alternatively than letting it dispersed for days unchecked. It follows a akin connection past week that also attributed to Russian actors a wide circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed successful Pennsylvania.

The 20-second video successful question, which began circulating connected the societal media level X connected Thursday afternoon, shows idiosyncratic who describes himself arsenic a Haitian migrant talking astir however he’s intending to ballot aggregate times successful 2 Georgia counties for Vice President Kamala Harris.

He flashes respective purported Georgia IDs with antithetic names and addresses, and an Associated Press investigation of the accusation connected 2 of the IDs confirms it does not lucifer immoderate registered voters successful Gwinnett oregon Fulton counties., the 2 counties helium mentioned.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Thursday nighttime that the video is “obviously fake” and apt the merchandise of Russian trolls “attempting to sow discord and chaos connected the eve of the election.”

Intelligence officials echoed that uncovering Friday, saying the video was manufactured by “Russian power actors” and was portion of “Moscow’s broader effort to rise unfounded questions astir the integrity of the U.S. predetermination and stoke divisions among Americans.”

The quality assemblage expects Russia, successful the days earlier the predetermination and weeks and months after, “to make and merchandise further media contented that seeks to undermine spot successful the integrity of the predetermination and disagreement Americans,” said the associated connection from the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The station that primitively popularized the video was nary longer disposable connected Friday morning, but copycat versions of the video were inactive being shared wide with mendacious claims it showed predetermination fraud.

The video successful its benignant and method of dissemination is akin to different videos created by Storm-1516, besides known arsenic CopyCop, a known Russian disinformation web that has created respective fake videos this election, according to Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub astatine Clemson University, who has researched the group.