Polling stations transformed into fortresses, some monitored by drones and with snipers on the roofs, dozens of legal actions already initiated, the fear of an eruption of violence after the vote… The American presidential election takes place under high tension. As expected, this election brought its share of “fake news” throughout the campaign and until voting day. This Tuesday, November 5 in the morning, the FBI, the federal police, once again warned Americans against false videos which are circulating and calling into question the integrity of voting operations.
In question, two new misleading videos falsely evoking terrorist threats and electoral fraud. As Reuters explains, a fabricated video claiming to be from the FBI falsely cites a high terrorist threat and urges Americans to “vote remotely.” Another video includes a fake press release claiming to come from this federal agency and claims that rigged votes were recorded among inmates in five prisons. “Both of these pieces of information are not authentic,” the FBI warned in a press release published this Tuesday. For the FBI, “attempts to mislead the public with false content about FBI threat assessments and activities are intended to undermine our democratic process and erode confidence in the electoral system.”
“Russia is the most active threat”
On Monday, November 4, US intelligence agencies said they expected overseas influence operations to “intensify through Election Day and in the weeks to come” particularly in seven key states, the “swing states”, which are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. “Russia is the most active threat” in these so-called pivotal states which must determine the result of the presidential election, accused the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Agency in a joint statement. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security (CISA). “These attempts risk inciting violence, including against electoral officials,” these services expressed alarm.
According to the ODNI, a video recently circulated on social networks with an interview with a person claiming that fraud with false ballots and alterations of electoral lists was to favor Kamala Harris in Arizona. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes called the video “completely bogus” and his state, considered a bastion of electoral conspiracy, took measures to protect its election officials and voting operations.
A fake video of a Haitian immigrant
Last week, American intelligence services had already accused Russia of having broadcast a false video. It showed a Haitian immigrant with several Georgia ID cards claiming to have voted several times in the US state of Georgia. In a 20-second clip viewable on We are from Haiti, we arrived in America six months ago, and we already have American citizenship – we are voting for Kamala Harris. He then claimed that he and his friends had voted in several counties and showed a series of driver’s licenses. “We checked the voter rolls. There is no match. The IDs are fake and there is no way that the people in the video voted in Georgia using those IDs,” he said. to AFP Mike Hassinger, spokesperson for state authorities.
“This is an example of the targeted disinformation that we have seen during this election and in others,” Brad Raffensperger, head of elections in the state of Georgia, lamented to AFP, saying that it was “probably a production of Russian troll farms”. These suspicions were confirmed by the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in a joint press release published Friday November 1st. “The intelligence community concludes that Russian agents of influence fabricated a recent video falsely showing individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple Georgia counties,” according to this text.
Russia has denied being behind the fake videos linked to the US elections. “We have taken note of the statement by the American intelligence services accusing our country of broadcasting fabricated videos on electoral violations in the United States. We consider these allegations to be unfounded,” declared Saturday, November 2, the Russian Embassy in the United States in a statement published on Telegram, also distributed by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Kamala Harris’ husband targeted
Over the weekend, the FBI also warned of several other fake videos circulating on the Internet. The American agency publicly denied on Saturday the content of two videos targeting the American presidential election, which impersonated the American federal service, notably including the FBI logo. The first targeted Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris, accusing him of having a financial interest in the opioid crisis plaguing the United States. The second “claimed that the FBI apprehended three linked groups committing electoral fraud,” explained the federal police. These two videos, broadcast on X, “are not authentic, do not come from the FBI and their content is false”, underlined the FBI in a press release relayed on X and on Facebook.
As reports the BBCthese videos, like more than 300 others that BBC Verify has found since the start of 2024 as part of an investigation carried out with the British online research company Logically, specializing in the analysis and fight against misinformation, and with CheckFirst, an online analytics company based in Finland, have been viewed tens of thousands of times, according to X statistics. But these clips are posted by accounts with few subscribers and they attract very few comments. These are all signs revealing that the number of views is amplified by “bots”, these fake accounts carrying out automated, repetitive and predefined tasks.