“Russian agents” behind fake video according to intelligence services

American authorities on Friday accused “Russian agents of influence” of being behind a video, widely distributed a few days before the presidential election, in which a man presenting himself as a Haitian immigrant claims to have voted illegally on multiple occasions in key Georgia counties.

According to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's elections official, this video, showing a man in possession of several state ID cards, is “an example of the targeted disinformation we have seen during this election and in other countries.” 'others', adding that it is 'probably a production of Russian troll farms'.

Actions orchestrated by Russia

These suspicions were confirmed by the Federal Police (FBI), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in a joint statement, affirming that “agents of Russian influence fabricated a recent video falsely showing individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple Georgia counties.

These agencies emphasize that this video is part of a series of actions orchestrated by Russia to “raise unfounded questions about the integrity of American elections and fuel divisions between Americans”.

Another video also attributed to Russia

In this 20-second video, still visible on X, a man in a vehicle declares on camera: “We are from Haiti. We came to America six months ago, and we already have American citizenship – we are voting for Kamala Harris,” before claiming he voted in several counties and showing several driver's licenses.

Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for the Georgia authorities, however, said that the identities presented are false and that it is not possible that the people in the video voted in Georgia. Brad Raffensperger asked Elon Musk and other platforms to remove the video, although it was still visible on the X network, which recently showed its support for Donald Trump. The previous week, security agencies had already identified another disinformation video, also attributed to Russian agents, purporting to show the destruction of mail-in ballots for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.