Josh MeyerChris Ullery
USA TODAY
Federal authorities believe a viral video spreading online showing mail ballots being destroyed in the key battleground suburb of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, might be a hoax perpetrated by Russia as part of its covert effort to help elect former President Donald Trump, a federal official exclusively told USA TODAY on Friday.
The video shows a stack of sealed mail ballot envelopes on a table as an unidentified man proceeds to open them and tear up ballots with votes for former President Donald Trump and return ballots for Vice President Kamala Harris.
"F--- Donald Trump," the man in the video said repeatedly as he rips up the ballots.
Bucks County officials said late Thursday that they were aware of a "fake" video that began circulating earlier in the day on social media purporting to show Bucks County mail-in ballots being opened and destroyed
According to the county's statement, the FBI, Pennsylvania Office of AttorneyGeneral and Pennsylvania Department of State have also been contacted about the video.
Sign-up for Your Vote: Text with the USA TODAY elections team.The FBI in Washington had no immediate comment on the video and whether it is investigating it.
Video bears all the hallmarks of a Russian information operation
But a federal official told USA TODAY that the video bears all the hallmarks of being part of a massive Russian influence operation that has been ramping up as the election nears to help push Trump to victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.The federal official said that because the video "fits into the narrative" being pushed by Russia, the FBI is taking the lead in probing its origins with an assist from U.S. intelligence officials and cyber experts in the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
So far, there is no solid evidence this early in the investigation to definitively attribute the fake video to Moscow, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials have been publicly warning for months about an unprecedented level of foreign election interference in the Trump vs. Harris contest. They say Russia is cranking out propaganda to benefit the former President and Iran is waging a propaganda effort to defeat him because of his hardline actions against the Islamic Republic.Russia has been, by far, the most active and aggressive in the contest, U.S. intelligence officials have said, including creating fake videos in which people claim to have been victimized by Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
One video alleges that Harris struck and paralyzed a young girl in a hit-and-run accident in San Francisco. Another claims that Walz sexually abused one of his students when he was a Minnesota teacher.
Neither claim is true, officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) have said in recent briefings with reporters. But those videos, and other Russian influence operations have gone viral on X, formerly Twitter, and other social media platforms, reaching potentially millions of American voters.The federal official told USA TODAY on Friday that authorities believe there are many more fake election videos in circulation, in which Russia films people pretending to be Americans to boost pro-Trump and anti-Harris narratives, to sow general chaos and to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.
Why would Russia want to target Bucks County, Pennsylvania?
Recent polls show the presidential election contest to be a dead heat. That makes Pennsylvania – and especially Bucks County, an affluent suburb just outside Philadelphia – a critical swing area in determining the outcome.
In both of the last two presidential elections, Montgomery and Bucks counties cast more ballots combined than in Philadelphia, which alone accounted for 10% of the 6.1 million votes counted in 2020 and 11.5% of the 6.1 million votes counted in 2020. Next to Luzerne County, Bucks County has the narrowest divide among Republican and Democratic voters. Republicans make up about 41.6% of voters while Democrats make up about 41% of voters, according to voter registration data from earlier this month.
Both candidates have focused intensively on Bucks County and neighboring areas. Last week, Trump worked the fry machine at a McDonald's in Feasterville and later claimed he did so to show he had spent "15 minutes more than Kamala" working at the iconic fast food chain.More:Here's why Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are coming to Philly suburbs: We're purple
The federal official praised Bucks County officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, for quickly identifying the video as fake and publicly repudiating it.
Bucks County spokesman James O'Malley said one giveaway was that the envelopes shown in the video appear to be glossy, a feature that official ballot envelopes don't have. The non-glossy secrecy envelopes on official ballots can be seen in this video from the county posted to YouTube in August, the Bucks County Courier Times reported.“This type of behavior is meant to sow division and distrust in our election systems and makes a mockery of the people working incredibly hard to ensure a free and fair election is carried out," Bucks County commissioner and Board of Elections Chair Bob Harvie told the Courier Times. He said the elections board "unequivocally condemns this purposeful spreading of dangerous disinformation.”
The Bucks County Democratic Committee also released a statement Thursday evening denouncing the video."This obviously fraudulent and, frankly, racist video is little more than a despicable attempt by supporters of Donald Trump to cast doubt on our vote by mail system and, ultimately, the outcome of the Presidential Election," state Sen. Steve Santarsiero (D-Bucks) chairman of the county Democratic committee, said.
The Bucks County Republican Committee also quickly spoke out on the video in a post to the group's Facebook page, saying the video is "aimed at scaring voters and dissuading (voters) from using mail-in ballots or on-demand voting that uses the same mail-in ballot process."