YARDLEY – Russian actors were behind a widely circulated video showing mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania, U.S. officials confirmed Friday.

The video was posted on social media on Thursday but was denied by local election officials and law enforcement within three hours of the public reporting it.

U.S. officials said in a statement sent by the FBI that they believed the video was “manufactured and replicated” by Russian actors. Officials said it was “part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of US elections and fuel divisions among Americans.”

The information was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The Bucks County Board of Elections found the video to be fake on Thursday, saying the envelope and other materials in the video were “clearly not authentic materials belonging to or distributed by the board.”

The swift takedown of the staged video showed how election officials have learned to move quickly to counter false narratives over the past four years as large swathes of American voters have become distrustful of the voting process in 2020. However, the video includes a detailed imitation of ballot papers. A wake-up call has been issued in a key district in this year’s presidential race, showing how foreign actors are determined to undermine confidence in the US voting process during the critical period before the end of voting.

The video showed a person sorting through what appeared to be mail-in ballots labeled as coming from Bucks County. The man, who is black, is seen tearing up ballots marked for Trump and leaving alone ballots marked for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Researchers who closely examine Russia’s foreign influence campaigns had previously linked the video to a Russian disinformation network known as Storm-1516 or CopyCop. The network has previously shared multiple videos containing false claims about Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.

The user who popularized the Bucks County video on social platform The first person his team tracked was in August 2023.

Linvill said the style and look of the latest video also matches other videos on the network.

According to Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who studies Russian disinformation, the video used a black actor with a foreign accent; this was a choice that may have been deliberate as a way of exacerbating existing divisions on American soil. .

He said this is a common strategy in fake videos originating from Russia.

“It tends to increase racism, right?” said Lukito. “There’s already this kind of debate about immigrants voting illegally or immigration in general. “Russian disinformation certainly takes advantage of this.”

After the video was debunked, user X, who popularized the video, deleted his original post and shared multiple posts from other accounts saying the video was fake.

America PAC, the super political action committee founded by billionaire X owner Elon Musk to support Trump’s second-term bid, was among those to condemn the video; This was in stark contrast to the misinformation frequently spread on X, often promoted by Musk himself. . The PAC declined a request for further comment.

There were numerous 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 processing mail-in ballots and preparing them to be counted.

Other clues included the dark green color (actually more kelly green) on the left side of the outer envelopes and the sheen of the inner and outer envelopes, which actually have a matte finish. Moreover, none of the envelopes in the video had voters’ return addresses written on them.

Complaints from citizens throughout Bucks County and a call from the Yardley County police chief alerted District Attorney Jennifer Schorn that the video was circulating online. Schorn was at a pretrial conference Thursday and saw a barrage of calls about the video when he emerged.

“We immediately started investigating the video at this point and came to the final conclusion that this was, in fact, fabricated,” he said in a phone interview Friday.

Schorn was reluctant to explain how authorities reached this conclusion, citing concerns that later fraudsters might improve their tactics. He said his office has assigned two attorneys to review allegations of fraud and that they will be available “24/7” on Election Day.

Both Republicans and Democrats in the county said the video was fake and expressed concern about how it could affect the election.

“In our view, this is disinformation intended to intimidate voters and deter them from using mail-in ballots or optional voting that uses the same mail-in ballot process,” the Bucks County Republican Committee wrote in a statement. “We’ve seen dirty undercover tactics this year, from sign defacements to letters threatening Trump supporters and now this video trying to intimidate Bucks County voters.”

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

Officials said they were encouraged by the speed with which this disinformation and some other harmful falsehoods were caught during this election cycle.

“I certainly don’t blame Americans for wanting assurance that the system is reliable,” Schorn said. “I don’t blame that because unfortunately, you know, there are criminal organizations that undermine the processes. I felt safe yesterday. “I felt like everything was working as it should.”