A key swing county in a key swing state had to swiftly bat down a viral video on Thursday that they are calling disinformation.
The video — which has been debunked by officials and experts — shows the alleged destruction of mail-in ballots cast for the former president by election workers in that county. It includes expletives when discussing the former president and the narrator says "vote Harris" at one point.
The Bucks County Board of Elections put out a statement Thursday evening calling it a “fake” — and added that the video has been reported to local and state law enforcement agencies as well as the FBI.
The board said “This type of behavior is meant to sow division and distrust in our election systems, and makes a mockery of the people working incredibly hard to ensure a free and fair election is carried out.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt told Scripps News that the video was a “conspicuous fake. No envelopes are sealed. No return addresses on envelopes. Even mail ballots cast at election offices are sealed.” Though he didn’t know the source of the video, he said, “Anyone who works in elections every day can spot a fake a mile away.”
Scripps News spoke with Schmidt back in September when he was in Washington, and he said that his office had their eyes peeled for disinformation narratives on social media, and that they would be combating that with press releases, interviews, and would be closely monitoring what’s posted online.
We don’t know the origin of this video, though the intelligence community told us just earlier this week that they expect an uptick in foreign malign actors attempting to influence the U.S. election. Russia, China, and Iran have been using disinformation and propaganda campaigns to sow division and unrest in the US and undermine Americans’ confidence in the democratic process. This kind of video would fall neatly into that category.
RELATED STORY | US officials expect foreign influence efforts to intensify ahead of the election
Cyberattack in Georgia
Officials in another crucial swing state, Georgia, confirmed to reporters that about 10 days ago, they were the target of an attempted cyberattack that their systems detected and fended off.
Gabe Sterling, the Chief Operating Officer in the Secretary of State’s office there, told Scripps News that on Oct 14, their cyber defenses repelled a DDOS — or distributed denial of service — attack on the website that voters use to request an absentee ballot.
This kind of cyber attack tries to slow down normal traffic to a website.
Sterling said that there was no disruption to voter’s ability to request those ballots.
Another official in that office confirmed that it was “likely” carried out by a foreign country.
Sterling was candid and said that their office has never experienced something like that before “at that level.” He said that they notified the FBI and CISA.
