Intelligence agencies in the United States have accused “Russian influence actors” over a video that falsely claimed election fraud was taking place in the battleground state of Georgia, days before the country’s knife-edge presidential vote.
The video began circulating on X, the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk – a staunch supporter of Republican candidate Donald Trump – on Thursday afternoon. It claims to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia IDs who says he is planning to vote multiple times in two counties.
In a joint statement issued on Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said “Russian influence actors manufactured a recent video that falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally” in Georgia.
“This judgment is based on information available to the IC [intelligence community] and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities,” the agencies said
The activity is “part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans”, the statement alleged.
Russia, which has previously dismissed as absurd US intelligence claims that it is seeking to meddle in the November 5 election, on Saturday called the latest allegations “baseless”.
Russia’s embassy in the US said it “has not received either any proof for these claims during its communications with US officials, or any inquiries regarding the narrative being promoted by the press” in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
“As President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed, we respect the will of the American people. All insinuations about ‘Russian machinations’ are malicious slander, invented for use in the internal political struggles” in the US, Moscow’s mission said.
It described as an “unfortunate tradition” that US authorities and media “descend into hysteria about ‘Russian disinformation and interference’, attempting to attribute any problems to external influence”.
Earlier on Friday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said his state has been targeted with a video that is “obviously fake”.
He added that the clip is likely the product of Russian trolls “attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the election”, calling on social media companies to remove it from their platforms.
The original video was no longer on X on Friday morning, but copycat versions were still being shared widely.
An analysis of the information on two of the IDs in the video confirmed it did not match any registered voters in the counties, The Associated Press news agency reported.
Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, have previously spread false rumours about Haitian migrants eating pets in the town of Springfield.
Trump referenced the claims during an election debate against his rival, Democrat Kamala Harris, in September viewed by tens of millions of people. Following that, Springfield saw dozens of bomb threats that forced evacuations and public building closures, as well as the cancellation of a diversity festival.
Opinion polls, both nationwide and in the seven closely divided battleground states, suggest Trump virtually tied with Harris, with four days to go before Election Day. More than 66 million people have already cast early ballots.
