The Russian government is behind a video showing someone destroying Pennsylvania ballots in a ploy designed to stoke fear and doubt about election results, according to U.S. intelligence analysts.
The U.S. government’s warning about Moscow’s active measures targeting American voters on Friday came from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The intelligence community “assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, judging from information available … and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities,” the agencies said in a joint statement. “Local election officials have already debunked the video’s content.”
The two-paragraph statement did not say where the video was shared or which Russian individuals were responsible for spreading the suspected fakery.
Before the warning, however, some U.S. Republicans on X sounded an alarm about the scenes depicted in the forged video.
The Bucks County Republican Committee in Pennsylvania said on Thursday it was aware of a video showing someone ripping up ballots with votes for former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential candidate.
The Republicans said via their @BucksGOP account on X that they confirmed the forgery with the local elections board and alerted Mr. Trump’s campaign.
Unlike the intelligence community alert, the local political party provided specific details of the forgery.
“The video is fake, with things such as the color of the envelopes being the wrong shade of green, the paper is not the same quality used by the Bucks County Board of Elections, the envelopes lack a return address, and no employee at Bucks County Board of Election meets the description of the person in the video,” the Republicans said via @BucksGOP. “Furthermore, no mail-in or absentee ballots have been or will be opened and counted until Election Day on November 5th.”
Scott Presler, a Republican activist registering voters via his group Early Vote Action, posted screenshots of the forgery on Thursday alongside the official ballot for voters on X to review.
“It’s likely propaganda to make Republicans distrust mail-in ballots in a swing PA county,” Mr. Presler wrote on X.
Mr. Presler and Bucks County Republicans moved faster and provided more supporting evidence exposing the fakery than the intelligence officials did in their subsequent announcement.
The U.S. intelligence community, however, is taking new steps in 2024 to share information publicly about foreign adversaries’ election trickery while keeping the spy agencies’ tradecraft hidden.
Intelligence officials told reporters earlier this year that people from across the federal government’s 18 intelligence agencies are flagging concerning material for review and an “election threats executive” is helping to sort through suspicious incidences requiring additional scrutiny.
The bureaucratic process of moving from identification to making a decision to act takes varying amounts of time.
Public warnings from the intelligence community came within days of suspected Russian forgeries spreading online concerning the Pennsylvania ballots and a separate effort to denigrate Democratic vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
The Biden administration is pleased with the results of the intelligence community’s effort to expose Russian information operations but wants to hasten the tempo. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday that America’s ability to thwart election meddling has improved during the last eight years.
Mr. Sullivan said in remarks at the National Defense University that U.S. officials have systems in place to rapidly identify and expose deepfakes.
“I’d like to shorten the string so it works faster and it works in more cases, but I believe that as we exercise this muscle going forward, we can continue to make progress,” Mr. Sullivan said. “We are not where we need to be. I acknowledge that.”
Mr. Sullivan also said the national security enterprise was considering adding an “information czar” or delegating authority to a single agency to better address influence operations aimed at deceiving Americans.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.