YARDLEY, PA –

Russian actors made a widely distributed video falsely showing the destruction of mail-in ballots for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, U.S. officials said Friday.

A video showing mail-in ballots for Trump apparently destroyed in a suburban Philadelphia county quickly spread on social media Thursday afternoon.

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

The information was released in a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

THIS IS A LATEST UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

YARDLEY, Pa. (AP) — A video showing mail-in ballots for former U.S. President Donald Trump apparently destroyed in a suburban Philadelphia county quickly spread on social media Thursday afternoon.

Cries of election fraud came close behind.

But after three hours, Bucks County election officials contradicted the video, identifying it as fake.

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

This latest claim involving a key country is an example not only of attempts to influence voters during the final weeks of contentious elections, but also of how election officials have learned to act quickly to counter false narratives during of the last four years.

Since 2020, distrust of the electoral process has set in among many Americans, creating an additional challenge for state and local officials who must not only administer elections, but also repeatedly explain and emphasize the safeguards in place to protect the vote.

Election officials across the country have spent the past several years preparing for the onslaught of false claims, from holding tabletop exercises on worst-case scenarios to beefing 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 to unrestricted tours in hopes of shutting down some of the most damaging conspiracy theories.

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

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

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

The user who popularized the video on X was an early amplifier of several other narratives on that network, he said. These included a fake video released earlier this month containing unfounded allegations against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. The user also amplified the very first story tracked by Linvill’s team since Storm-1516, in August 2023.

The style and look of the latest video matches other videos on the network, including the use of a black actor, Linvill said.

This has long been a trend in fake videos originating from Russia, said Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied Russian disinformation. She said the video’s use of a black actor with an accent was intentional in order to inflame existing divisions on American soil.

“That tends to amplify racism, right? Lukito said. “There is already this kind of debate about immigrants who vote illegally or about immigration in general. Russian disinformation absolutely exploits this.”

After the video was debunked, User X deleted their original post and shared several posts from other accounts, calling it fake.

America PAC, a super political action committee launched by billionaire on X, often encouraged by Musk himself. . The PAC declined a request for additional comment.

There were plenty of clues immediately pointing to the Bucks County video being fabricated. For example, under Pennsylvania law, election officials must wait until 7 a.m. Eastern Time on Election Day before they can begin processing ballots cast by mail and processing them. prepare for the count.

Other clues include the dark green color on the left side of the outer casings – it’s actually more of a kelly green – and the sheen of the inner and outer casings, which actually have a matte finish. Additionally, none of the envelopes in the video contained the voters’ return address.

Complaints from citizens across Bucks County and a call from the Yardley Borough police chief alerted prosecutor Jennifer Schorn that the video was circulating online. Schorn was in a pretrial conference Thursday and when she came out, she saw the calls about the video pouring in.

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

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

Schorn was reluctant to describe how authorities reached this conclusion, citing fears that later fraudsters might improve their tactics. She said the FBI immediately took over the investigation and was working to find out who made the video. The FBI declined to comment on its investigation.

Schorn said his office has assigned two attorneys to look into the fraud allegations and that they will be available “24/7” on Election Day.

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

“To us, this is misinformation intended to scare voters and dissuade them from using mail-in voting or on-demand voting that uses the same mail-in voting process,” the Republican committee wrote of Bucks County in a statement. “We’ve seen some underhanded dirty tactics this year, from defacing signs, to letters threatening Trump supporters, and now this video trying to scare voters in Bucks County.”

Pennsylvania Sen. Steve Santarsiero, chairman of the Bucks County Democratic Committee, called the video an attempt to “cast doubt on our mail-in voting system and, ultimately, the outcome of the presidential election.” in a press release.

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

According to Schorn, the rapid response to the video was possible because people spoke up. She added that she thought the incident showed that officials were prepared to deal with what might happen and that she hoped it “continues in this vein.”

“I don’t blame Americans at all for wanting to be reassured that the system is reliable,” she said. “I don’t blame that because, unfortunately, you know, there are criminal entities that undermine the processes. I felt reassured yesterday. I felt like it was working as expected.

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