Federal agencies: Russia behind fake viral video showing ‘Haitian immigrants’ voting for Harris
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Federal cybersecurity and intelligence officials said on Friday that a viral video purporting to show Haitian immigrants engaging in voter fraud was made by Russian interference groups that are trying to undermine confidence in U.S. elections.
The video, which began circulating on social media this week, shows two men who claim they arrived to the U.S. from Haiti six months ago. They claim to have American citizenship and that they are voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in multiple Georgia counties, showing cards that appear to look like drivers’ licenses.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly told MSNBC on Friday that the video was “Russian-produced and specifically designed to go viral and undermine American confidence in the security and the integrity of our election.”
CISA, the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI released a joint statement shortly after, pointing to “Russian influence actors” as responsible for the video. Russian entities also created a video that falsely accuses a person linked to the Harris-Walz ticket of taking a bribe from an entertainer, the agencies said.
Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had pushed back on the video earlier this week, saying it was “obviously fake” and “an example of targeted disinformation.”
“This is false and is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen in this and other elections,” Raffensperger said in a statement Thursday night.
The video was amplified on X by RNC committeewoman from Georgia Amy Kremer, prompting criticism from Gabriel Sterling, the chief operating officer for Raffensperger’s office. (Kremer helped to organize the rally that led to the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.)
“No responsible person would retweet this ridiculously obvious lie and disinformation,” Sterling responded. “Those doing so are acting to further the efforts of America’s enemies and undermine the security of our nation.”
In his statement Thursday, Raffensperger urged social media platforms to remove the video from their websites, singling out in particular Elon Musk, the owner of X. Election misinformation has run rampant on X under Musk’s leadership, and the acerbic billionaire, who has endorsed Donald Trump, has personally amplified political conspiracy theories on the platform. The video was still available on the platform as of Friday afternoon.
The video in question combines two of Trump’s most egregious false claims: his racist, baseless attacks on Haitian migrants in the U.S. and his unfounded claims that Democrats are cheating in the election by allowing immigrants to vote. There is no evidence that Democrats are granting citizenship to immigrants as a means to obtain more votes.
Election officials have also repeatedly struck down the claim that widespread noncitizen voting is a real issue. In Georgia, the most recent state audit of voter rolls found 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters, Raffensperger said last week, only nine of whom have ever voted in the U.S.
CORRECTION (Nov. 2, 2024, 3:52 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the number of noncitizens that the Georgia state audit found to have voted. It is nine, not 11.
