FBI links video falsely depicting voter fraud in Georgia to 'Russian influence actors'

WASHINGTON (AP) — A video purporting to depict voter fraud in Georgia is fake and the work of “Russian influence actors," U.S. intelligence officials said Friday as they warned that foreign efforts to undermine faith in the integrity of next week's elections may persist long after votes have been cast.

The announcement that the video was fake represented an effort by the FBI and other federal agencies, four days before Tuesday's elections, to combat foreign disinformation by calling it out rather than letting it spread for days unchecked. It follows a similar statement last week that also attributed to Russian actors a widely circulated video falsely depicting mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in Pennsylvania.

The 20-second video, which began circulating on the social media platform X on Thursday afternoon, shows someone who describes himself as a Haitian immigrant talking about how he’s intending to vote multiple times in two Georgia counties for Vice President Kamala Harris.

He flashes several purported Georgia IDs with different names and addresses. An Associated Press analysis of the information on two of the IDs confirms it does not match any registered voters in Gwinnett or Fulton counties, the two counties he mentioned.