Video of Donald Trump's destroyed ballots is “fake”, Russia responsible: USA

Washington, United States:

Russian actors were behind a viral video that falsely shows the destruction of mail-in ballots for Donald Trump in the swing state of Pennsylvania, U.S. officials said Friday, amid heightened alert about foreign influence operations targeting the upcoming election.

The video, which has garnered millions of views on platforms such as the Elon Musk-owned

On Thursday, the Bucks County Board of Elections declared the video “fake” and said the envelope and other materials depicted in the footage were “clearly not authentic materials” belonging to or distributed by it.

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 produced and amplified a recent video that falsely shows a person tearing up ballots in Pennsylvania,” the statement said.

“This Russian activity is part of Moscow's broader efforts to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans,” it said.

The statement said Russia was expected to create and publish more such content to undermine “confidence” in the integrity of the November 5 election.

The video emerged as American authorities braced for a surge in disinformation in the final days of a tense election between Republican nominee Trump and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

According to researchers including Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, the video, which was also debunked by AFP's fact-checkers, was linked to a Kremlin-aligned disinformation network called Storm-1516.

Linvill, who has studied the network closely, said the account on X – formerly called Twitter – that distributed the video regularly amplified other narratives from that network.

According to disinformation researchers, Storm-1516 has previously produced fake videos to discredit the campaign of Harris and her vice president, Tim Walz.

Last month, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center said Russian agents were ramping up disinformation operations to smear Harris' campaign by distributing conspiracy-laden videos.

In addition to Russia, Iran and China are also “fueling divisive narratives to divide Americans and undermine Americans' trust in the U.S. democratic system,” the ODNI warned in a memo earlier this week.

“Foreign influence efforts are intensifying in the run-up to Election Day, particularly through social media posts – some of which are likely to be generated or enhanced by AI,” the report said.

“These actors likely recognize that undermining confidence in elections weakens the legitimacy of our democracy and, as a result, makes the United States less able to effectively pursue policies that run counter to their interests,” she added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)