Recent video purportedly showing a man destroying ballots marked for Trump is a disinformation campaign, say officials

Russian actors were behind a viral video falsely showing mail-in ballots for Donald Trump being destroyed in the swing state of Pennsylvania, US officials said on Friday, amid heightened alert over foreign influence operations targeting the upcoming election.

The video, which garnered millions of views on platforms such as the Elon Musk-owned X, purports to show a man sorting through mail-in ballots from the state’s Bucks county and ripping up those cast for the former president.

On Thursday, the Bucks county board of elections declared the video “fake”, saying that the envelope and other materials depicted in the footage are “clearly not authentic materials” belonging to or distributed by them.

  • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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    26 days ago

    There was a time in recent memory when you could expect leaders of both parties and major candidates to step forward and repudiate the video and America’s adversary.

    I would be surprised if Trump does not repeatedly reference this as evidence Democrats attempted to steal the election from now until his death.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    26 days ago

    If anyone commits actual election fraud this election, it’ll be Republicans, likely using shit like this as evidence. “They’re doing it to us, we have to do it to them!”

    • Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee
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      26 days ago

      I kind of figured that’s been the point from the beginning. If you can’t win an election legitimately because the educated see through your bullshit, do illegal things that cannot be tracked or that is “legal” just despicable, like deregister non-republican voters and make sure your planted vote counters make sure they all seem to show up R or aren’t counted because they are “fraudulent” - because the watchers are all your people there’s nothing to be done to challenge it.

      these are the same people who have been accusing every single democrat ever of fraudulent things by any means necessary. They’ve wanted to impeach biden for “fraud” but can’t find any wrongdoing. They are also the people who attempted to create fake electoral votes to seize power after losing the popular vote.

      It’s pretty sad the legal system is bought and paid for by billionaires who have no interest in allowing the courts to actually follow the law unless it results in lower taxes and higher subsidies for them. If the judges actually did their jobs a lot more people would be in jail for election interference.

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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    26 days ago
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