A fake video has circulated widely in recent days on social networks. It shows so-called Haitians who say they voted illegally on numerous occasions for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the swing state of Georgia. However, this video was produced by a Russian disinformation organization, according to numerous American intelligence agencies.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a joint statement released Friday that Russian agents of influence fabricated recent video falsely showing individuals posing as from Haiti and voting illegally in several Georgia counties
.
This Russian activity is part of a broader effort by Moscow to raise unfounded doubts about the integrity of the U.S. election and fuel divisions among the American public.
say intelligence agencies.
The video spread in particular in a community of the social network X which is dedicated to listing potential cases of electoral fraud or irregularities
in the American election, created by the political action committee of billionaire and owner of the X platform, Elon Musk.
The latter is busy casting doubt on the electoral process and the possible results of the vote on his account, which has had more than 200 million subscribers for several weeks.
Georgia Secretary of State Bard Raffensperger linked the video to Russia in a statement released on X Thursday evening. He then asked Mr. Musk and the owners of other social networks to remove it from their platforms.
This comes a week after the same intelligence agencies identified another video showing someone destroying ballots in Pennsylvania, another of the key states in this election, as Russian-produced disinformation.
Not the first suspected cases of Russian disinformation
Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, declared in several American media that these two videos are very similar to those produced by the Russian propaganda group Storm-1516, which has notably led campaigns influence to reduce Western support for military aid to Ukraine.
The network is notably behind false news according to which Kamala Harris was involved in a hit-and-run, as well as a false video accusing the Democratic candidate for the American vice-president, Tim Walz, of having assaulted sexually one of his former students.
With information from the New York Times and the Associated Press
