Video of man destroying ballot in Pennsylvania is fake

The post came from an account called “@TheWakeninq,” which promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory and was previously among the first to post a fake video accusing vice presidential candidate Tim Walz of sexual assault.

Similar posts sharing the video quickly resonated across the platform, where disinformation has thrived since it was purchased by Elon Musk in 2022.

In the clip, a man opens what appears to be returned mail-in ballots from Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, ripping up the votes cast for Trump but retaining the votes marked for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

The man, whose face cannot be seen, repeatedly complains about Trump throughout the recording.

But the clip does not show actual ballots, according to the county elections board, which called it “dangerous disinformation.”

“The Bucks County Board of Elections is aware that a video purportedly showing Bucks County mail-in ballots being opened and destroyed was circulated on social media this afternoon,” the county said in a statement released after AFP contacted recorded and asked the county election authority for comment. “This video is fake.”

“The envelope and materials depicted in this video are clearly not authentic materials owned or distributed by the Bucks County Board of Elections.”

At AFP's request, the Pennsylvania Department of State referred to the county election board's statement.

The Bucks County District Attorney's Office said in a separate statement that it investigated the video and concluded it was “fake” (archived here).

Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, reviewed the fake video at AFP's request and said in an Oct. 24 email that it appeared to be the work of a Russian propaganda group that researchers dubbed Storm-1516 have (archived here). .

“We assume this is Storm-1516,” Linvill, whose team uncovered the network in 2023, told AFP.

He said the quality of the clip, the use of a man with what appeared to be a West African accent and its distribution via the account “@TheWakeninq” were all consistent with the disinformation campaign.

OTTheir Storm 1516 fakes featured people who appeared to be of West African descent, and “@TheWakeninq” regularly expanded the campaign's narrative, going back to its earliest falsehoods, he said.

The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned of Russian influence efforts in an Oct. 22 election security memo, saying the intelligence community expects Russia to spread false information about the election to undermine Americans' trust in the process and results (archived here).

According to the Bucks County Board of Elections and the District Attorney's Office, the fake video was forwarded to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment.

Fake ballots

James O'Malley, deputy communications director for Bucks County, told AFP in an Oct. 24 email that the ballots in the fake video did not match the county's, which he said were all in a secure location under 24- Hour security would be kept. Hour of video surveillance.

“The envelopes shown in the fake video are clearly shiny,” O'Malley said. “We don’t use shiny envelopes. And the colors on the paper shown in the fake video are fake.”

Photos of the county's mail-in ballots — and an instructional video the county posted to its YouTube channel — show that the return envelopes are a different shade of green than those in the fake (archived here and here).

AFP separately noted that while there is a box labeled “Yardley Borough” in the fake video, one of the purported ballots appears to be labeled “Doylestown Township.”

The Bucks County Republican Committee, which said it investigated the video with the Trump campaign, also pointed out various discrepancies in an Oct. 24 post on X (archived here).

“The video is fake because, for example, the color of the envelopes is the wrong shade of green, the paper is not the same quality as the Bucks County Board of Elections, the envelopes are missing a return address, and there is no employee at Bucks.” “The Board of Elections of the county matches the description of the person in the video,” the committee said.

“In addition, no absentee or absentee ballots have been and will not be opened and counted until Election Day on November 5th.”

The committee said the county's election system “works and is secure” and called the video “disinformation designed to scare voters and discourage them from using mail-in ballots.”

Steve Santarsiero, chairman of the Bucks County Democratic Party, also released a statement on October 24 calling the video “obviously fraudulent” (archived here).

Some posts in which the clip is on

AFP has debunked further misinformation about the election here.