A fake video circulating online that features men claiming to be Haitian immigrants casting multiple votes in the U.S. election has been linked to a Russian interference group by federal officials. Here’s what we know so far.
This Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint statement regarding the video.
“The IC assesses that Russian influence actors manufactured a recent video that falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia,” it said. “This judgment is based on information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities. The Georgia Secretary of State has already refuted the video’s claims as false.”
Former President Donald Trump, the current GOP candidate, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have also shared false information about Haitian immigrants during this election cycle. They both spread a debunked rumor about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, with Trump even bringing it up during a debate with Democrat candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.
Border security and illegal immigration have been main talking points for Trump during his campaign. Notably, he recently referred to the U.S. as the “garbage can for the world,” and said Harris had filled the country with human “garbage” by orchestrating “an invasion of criminal migrants.”
Most Haitian immigrants who live and work in the U.S. do so legally, according to Axios. There are currently an estimated 852,000 Haitian immigrants in the U.S., according to the Center for Immigration Studies, and people from the Caribbean nation often move to the U.S. to escape gang warfare, political turmoil and the fallout from natural disasters such as a 2010 earthquake that killed 200,000 people.
CBS News reported that the man in the video debunked by federal officials claimed to vote in Gwinnett County and Fulton County for Harris. Fulton County officials told CBS News they had no record of a registered voter with the same name displayed on the driver’s license in the video.
Trump is facing criminal charges in Fulton related to alleged election interference during the 2020 presidential election. He’s facing other charges related to election interference allegations as well. Even before he lost the 2020 election to current President Joe Biden, Trump has been making unfounded claims that the election was “stolen” from him. These claims even fueled the deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump continues to make these claims, though he has never provided evidence to back them up.
According to CBS, the fake video was posted from an account called AlphaFo𝕏 on X that has since deleted it.
“When contacted by CBS News in direct messages on X, the person behind the account said they received the video from a source who regularly pays them to upload content,” the outlet reported. “They also said they believe the source is from Australia and that the source’s account was recently suspended on X.”
In a Friday X post, Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the video “is obviously fake, and likely it is a production of Russian troll farms,” adding that: “As Americans we can’t let our enemies use lies to divide us and undermine faith in our institutions – or each other.”
Raffensperger said his office urged X owner Elon Musk and other social media leaders to remove the video from their platforms.
“The Russians picked the wrong Georgians to mess with,” Raffensperger said in another X post. He revealed that 4 million people had cast early voting ballots in the state as of Friday and on Saturday noted that eyes are on Fulton County as election day draws near.
Previously, the AlphaFo𝕏 shared disinformation from the Russian influence group Storm-1516, Darren Linvill, an expert on Russian disinformation and co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, told CBS. That group in turn has been linked to other fabricated content, “including fake footage that purported to show election workers ripping up ballots in Bucks County, [Pa],” as well as disinformation about Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Per the statement from federal officials, Russian influence actors also manufactured a video falsely accusing an individual associated with the Democratic presidential ticket of taking a bribe from a U.S. entertainer. Officials said these activities are part of Moscow’s effort to “raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans, as detailed in prior ODNI election updates,” and more are expected.