Russia behind Georgia voter fraud video, FBI says

The FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies on Friday issued a statement crediting Russian agents with manufacturing a video depicting non-citizen voting in Georgia. The video depicts individuals claiming to be from Haiti who say they illegally voted in multiple counties in Georgia. Two individuals on the video appear to be holding multiple fake IDs the speaker claims were used to carry out their scheme.

The statements made in the video were false and the video itself was a piece of election disinformation, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said on Thursday. Raffensperger said the video was likely a foreign influence operation. He added that U.S. intelligence officials were investigating which entities might be behind it.

Why does the FBI say Russia was behind this video? The FBI based its assessment of the video’s origin on its understanding of prior Russian influence operations—including the use of videos. Russian agents are seeking to raise questions about the integrity of U.S. elections to deepen divisions among Americans, the FBI said. As the election approaches, the U.S. intelligence community expects that Russian operatives will manufacture and peddle more media content that aims to undermine trust in America’s election system.

Dig deeper: Read a report in The Stew by Carolina Lumetta and Leo Briceno providing an election integrity encyclopedia.