Russia produced fake video of immigrant election fraud in Georgia, officials say
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CISA is “very concerned” about the ways foreign adversaries might ramp up their efforts during the election certification period, one official said.
Kremlin spin doctors are responsible for creating a video purporting to show a person from Haiti claiming to have fraudulently voted several times in counties around Georgia, the U.S. intelligence community said Friday.
The video, which has been shared by some well-known Republicans, depicts a man alleging he immigrated from Haiti six months ago and swiftly gained U.S. citizenship. He claims to possess multiple state IDs, allowing him to vote for Kamala Harris across multiple counties in Georgia. The man also encourages all Haitians to move to America with their families.
“This judgment is based on information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities. The Georgia Secretary of State has already refuted the video’s claims as false,” said the statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI.
Yesterday, Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, asked X to remove the video involving the purported Haitian man. “This is false and a clear example of targeted disinformation in this election,” Raffensperger wrote, suggesting it was likely “created by Russian troll farms.”
Another video accusing a person tied to Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign of taking a bribe from a U.S. entertainer was also manufactured by Russia, according to the intelligence community’s statement.
An official from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, speaking on the condition of anonymity under agency-set press guidelines, said the U.S. is “very concerned about how our foreign adversaries will specifically target after Election Day” during the period of time in which state and local officials undertake procedures to certify the election’s results.
That time window “is an opportunity where our adversaries are likely to try to capitalize and to undermine the American people’s confidence in the outcome of the election, regardless of who wins,” the CISA official said.
Recent foreign influence attempts leading up to Nov. 5 are keeping officials hyper alert. The efforts have accelerated in recent weeks and months, conducted by Russia, Iran and China, the latter two of which have successfully compromised tangible confidential data or communications of the two major presidential campaigns that are deadlocked in national polls.
Russian election disinformation campaigns “pose a real risk,” Neal Higgins, a former deputy White House national cyber director, said in an interview.
“The Russians have made clear that they are determined to use disinformation to undermine American democracy. Eight years ago that was through leaked emails and false stories,” said Higgins, a partner at law firm Eversheds Sutherland. “Now it’s through cheap-fake and deep fake videos, including videos falsely alleging election irregularities.”