A staged video claimed to show someone destroying ballots. Election officials were prepared

YARDLEY, Pa. (AP) — A video that showed mail-in ballots for former President Donald Trump apparently being destroyed in a suburban Philadelphia county took off quickly on social media Thursday afternoon.

Cries of election fraud came right behind.

But within three hours Bucks County election officials were countering the video, identifying it as fake.

“The envelope and materials depicted in this video are clearly not authentic materials belonging to or distributed by the Bucks County Board of Elections,” read a statement released by the board on Thursday.

This latest claim involving a key county is an example not only of attempts to influence voters in the final weeks of a contentious election, but of how election officials have learned to move swiftly to counter false narratives over the last four years.

Since 2020, distrust in the voting process has taken hold among many Americans, creating an additional challenge for state and local officials who must not only administer elections but repeatedly explain and highlight the safeguards in place to protect the vote.

Election officials around the country have spent recent years preparing for the onslaught of false claims, from running worst-case-scenario tabletop exercises to shoring up emergency procedures with law enforcement to publishing proactive fact checks on their websites. Many have also increased transparency with the public, opening their doors for all-access tours in hopes it will head off some of the most damaging conspiracy theories.

The Bucks County video isn’t the only case in which this work has paid off. When AI-generated robocalls targeted Democratic voters in New Hampshire days before its primary in January, state authorities quickly issued statements and began investigations, which ultimately led to criminal charges and fines for the person responsible.

Disinformation experts say the Bucks County video signals a trend that’s likely to increase in the days leading up to Election Day — insidious disinformation, sometimes from foreign sources, that aims to undermine the public’s confidence in the electoral process.

This particular video is “almost certainly” connected to a Russian disinformation network known as Storm-1516 or CopyCop, according to Darren Linvill, the co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, who has closely studied the group.

The user who popularized the video on X had been an early amplifier of several other narratives from this network, he said. These included a fake video that spread earlier this month with unfounded allegations against Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz. The user also amplified the very first narrative Linvill’s team tracked from Storm-1516, back in August 2023.

The style and appearance of the latest video matches other videos from the network, including its use of a Black actor, Linvill said.

That’s long been a trend in fake videos originating in Russia, said Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has researched Russian disinformation. She said the video’s use of a Black actor with an accent is intentional as a way to inflame existing divisions on American soil.

“It tends to amplify racism, right?” Lukito said. “There’s already this kind of groundswell of discussion about immigrants that are illegally voting or immigration broadly. Russian disinformation absolutely exploits that.”

After the video had been debunked, the X user deleted their original post and shared multiple posts from other accounts decrying it as fake.

America PAC, a super political action committee launched by billionaire X owner Elon Musk to support Trump in his bid for a second term, often spurred by Musk himself. The PAC declined a request for further comment.

There were multiple clues that immediately indicated the Bucks County video was fabricated. For example, under Pennsylvania law, election officials must wait until 7 a.m. ET on Election Day before they can begin to process ballots cast by mail and prepare them to be counted.

Other tip-offs included the dark green color on the left side of the outer envelopes — it is actually more of a kelly green — and the glossiness of the inner and outer envelopes, which in reality have a matte finish. Plus, none of the envelopes in the video had voters’ return addresses written on them.

Citizen complaints from across Bucks County and a call from the Yardley Borough police chief alerted District Attorney Jennifer Schorn that the video was circulating online. Schorn was in a pretrial conference Thursday and when she emerged she saw the calls about the video pouring in.

“Immediately at that point, we began investigating the video and made our ultimate conclusion that it was, in fact, fabricated,” she said in a phone interview Friday.

The district attorney’s office initially investigated the video along with the Yardley Borough Police Department.

Schorn was reluctant to describe how authorities reached their conclusion, citing concerns that subsequent fraudsters could improve their tactics. She said the FBI picked up the investigation immediately and is aiming to find who made the video. The FBI declined to comment on its investigation.

Schorn said her office has assigned two attorneys to screen allegations of fraud and that they’ll be on “24/7” on Election Day.

Both Republicans and Democrats in the county called the video out as bogus and expressed concern about how it could affect the election.

“To us, this is disinformation, aimed at scaring voters and dissuading them from using mail-in ballots or on-demand voting that uses the same mail-in ballot process,” the Bucks County Republican Committee wrote in a statement. “We have seen dirty underhanded tactics this year, from the defacing of signs, letters threatening Trump supporters, and now this video trying to scare Bucks County voters.”

Pennsylvania Sen. Steve Santarsiero, chair of the Bucks County Democratic Committee, called the video an attempt to “cast doubt on our vote by mail system and, ultimately, the outcome of the Presidential Election” in a statement.

Neither the origin of the video nor its intent have been confirmed.

The fast response to the video was possible because people spoke up, according to Schorn. She added that she thinks this incident showed officials are ready for what could be coming and hopes that it “continues in that vein.”

“I don’t at all blame Americans for wanting to be reassured that the system can be trusted,” she said. “I don’t blame that because, sadly, you know, there are criminal entities out there that do undermine processes. I felt reassured yesterday. I felt like it worked the way it was supposed to.”

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