Investigators determined a viral video showing Bucks County ballots with votes for Donald Trump as president being ripped apart was fabricated. NBC10 investigative reporter Claudia Vargas speaks with an expert about the dangers of political disinformation.
Federal officials say that Russian actors created a fake video showing ballots being destroyed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.
The video – which appears to show a worker ripping up ballots that have a vote for Donald Trump as president – has made the rounds on social media.
Bucks County District Attorney and registered Republican Jennifer Schorn said her office received multiple reports related to the video within hours of it being posted online. She told NBC10 her initial concern was that someone was actually destroying ballots.
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"It didn't take long for us to determine that it was not an authentic video; that it was fabricated,” she said.
Ultimately, her office concluded the video was fabricated, "in an attempt to undermine confidence in the upcoming election."
The Bucks County Republican Committee noted several issues in the video, including the color of the envelopes being the wrong shade of green, the quality of the paper being different and the envelopes not having any return addresses.
They went on to say that ballots aren't being opened until November 5.
We have seen the video circulating on the internet showing someone, allegedly in Bucks County, ripping up ballots with votes for President Donald Trump. We immediately worked with our attorneys, as well as attorneys with the Trump campaign to investigate this. The Bucks County…
— Bucks GOP (@BucksGOP) October 24, 2024
State Senator and Chair of the Bucks County Democratic Party Steve Santarsiero called the video an “attempt by supporters of Donald Trump to cast doubt on our vote by mail system and, ultimately, the outcome of our Presidential Election."
In a joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, officials explained that the video came from "Russian influence actors."
“The IC assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, judging from information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities. Local election officials have already debunked the video’s content," officials said in the statement. "This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans, as detailed in prior ODNI election updates. In the lead up to election day and in the weeks and months after, the IC expects Russia to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans.”
Combating fake political videos
Shyam Sundar, the director of Penn State University’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, told NBC10 fake political videos not only cause distrust in the election process but could also lead to violence.
“What happens is anybody and everybody who has a computer and a camera can easily manipulate images. And the unfortunate part is fake videos are significantly more believable than fake text,” Sundar said. “It can and has already had impact on elections all over the world. Several elections have been affected by this deepfake technology, most notably in Brazil and South America.”
Sundar told NBC10 it’s difficult to discern truth from lies – especially on video – when we are flooded with information on social media.
“People react very immediately and strongly when they see it with their own eyes and they tend not to disbelieve their own eyes,” Sundar said.
The difference between misinformation and disinformation lies in the intent.
Misinformation is the unintentional sharing of false, inaccurate or incomplete information. An example of this is attributing a quote to the wrong person. Whereas, disinformation is purposely constructed to mislead people. It is the intentional spread of false, inaccurate or incomplete details.
