The video used a Black actor with a foreign accent — a choice that may be intentional as a way to inflame existing divisions on American soil, according to Josephine Lukito, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has researched Russian disinformation.
It’s a common strategy in fake videos originating in Russia, she said.
“It tends to amplify racism, right?” Lukito said. “There’s already this kind of groundswell of discussion about immigrants that are illegally voting or immigration broadly. Russian disinformation absolutely exploits that.”
After the video had been debunked, the X user who popularized it deleted their original post and shared multiple posts from other accounts decrying it as fake.
America PAC, a super political action committee launched by billionaire X owner Elon Musk to support Trump in his bid for a second term, was among those denouncing the video — a stark contrast to the misinformation that frequently spreads on X, often spurred by Musk himself. The PAC declined a request for further comment.
There were multiple clues that immediately indicated the Bucks County video was fabricated. For example, under Pennsylvania law, election officials must wait until 7 a.m. ET on Election Day before they can begin to process ballots cast by mail and prepare them to be counted.
Other tip-offs included the dark green color on the left side of the outer envelopes — it is actually more of a kelly green — and the glossiness of the inner and outer envelopes, which in reality have a matte finish. Plus, none of the envelopes in the video had voters’ return addresses written on them.
Citizen complaints from across Bucks County and a call from the Yardley Borough police chief alerted District Attorney Jennifer Schorn that the video was circulating online. Schorn was in a pretrial conference Thursday and when she emerged she saw the calls about the video pouring in.
“Immediately at that point, we began investigating the video and made our ultimate conclusion that it was, in fact, fabricated,” she said in a phone interview Friday.
Schorn was reluctant to describe how authorities reached their conclusion, citing concerns that subsequent fraudsters could improve their tactics. She said her office has assigned two attorneys to screen allegations of fraud and that they’ll be on “24/7” on Election Day.
Both Republicans and Democrats in the county called the video out as bogus and expressed concern about how it could affect the election.
“To us, this is disinformation, aimed at scaring voters and dissuading them from using mail-in ballots or on-demand voting that uses the same mail-in ballot process,” the Bucks County Republican Committee wrote in a statement. “We have seen dirty underhanded tactics this year, from the defacing of signs, letters threatening Trump supporters, and now this video trying to scare Bucks County voters.”
Pennsylvania Sen. Steve Santarsiero, chair of the Bucks County Democratic Committee, called the video an attempt to “cast doubt on our vote by mail system and, ultimately, the outcome of the Presidential Election” in a statement.
Officials said they were heartened by the speed with which this disinformation and some other harmful falsehoods have been caught during this election cycle.
“I don’t at all blame Americans for wanting to be reassured that the system can be trusted,” Schorn said. “I don’t blame that because, sadly, you know, there are criminal entities out there that do undermine processes. I felt reassured yesterday. I felt like it worked the way it was supposed to.”
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