US Says Russia Behind Fake Haitian Voters Video

US government agencies have accused Russian actors of being behind a faked video purporting to show Haitian’s illegally voting in multiple counties in the state of Georgia.

The joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the video is part of broader efforts by the Kremlin to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the US Presidential Election and stoke divisions among Americans.

“The Intelligence Community (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. 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 agencies wrote.

The video, which has been widely shared on X and other social media platforms, shows two men in a car claiming to be Haitian. They claimed to have multiple Georgia IDs and had voted for Democrat Party Presidential candidate Kamala Harris in two Georgia counties. They also encourage other Haitians to come to the US, saying they obtained citizenship within six months of arriving.

Georgia is a ‘swing state’ which is pivotal for the candidates to win to boost their chances of winning the election.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had earlier refuted the video’s claims as false in a statement on Thursday, October 31, and urged social media sites to remove the video.

“We are working to combat this and identify the origin of it with our state and federal partners. CISA is currently investigating. In the meantime, we ask Elon Musk and the leadership of other social media platforms to take this down. This is obviously fake and part of a disinformation effort. Likely it is a production of Russian troll farms,” Raffensperger said.

The BBC verify team said it had found clear indications including false addresses and stock photos, which indicate the video is a fake.

The video remains up on numerous X accounts at the time of writing.

The majority of American voters will head to the polls on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5. Many US citizens have already cast their vote using the postal voting system or early voting.

Nation-State Influence Operations Ramping Up

The joint intelligence agencies’ statement also accused Russian influence actors of manufacturing a separate video “falsely accusing an individual associated with the Democratic presidential ticket of taking a bribe from a US entertainer.”

This likely refers to a video posted on X, which claims Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff had tipped off music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs to a Department of Homeland Security raid in March in exchange for $500,000.

US government agencies have highlighted significant nation-state influence activity the months leading up to the 2024 US Presidential Election. In September, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) indicted two employees of Russian state media group RT (formerly known as Russia Today), after alleging they paid a Tennessee-based content company $10m to post disinformation which garnered millions of views.

Intelligence agencies also warned in September that malicious actors are spreading false claims that US voter registration databases have been breached, using publicly available voter registration information to support these claims.

In August, Microsoft released a report detailing four distinct cyber influence operations conducted by Iranian threat actors, which were designed to interfere with the US Presidential Election.

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