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Video of man planning to vote twice for Harris is Russian disinformation | Fact check
The claim: Video shows Haitian man describing plot to vote for Kamala Harris multiple times in Georgia
An Oct. 31 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a man claiming to be from Haiti detailing a plan to cast ballots for the Democratic presidential nominee in two Georgia counties. At one point, he holds four driver's licenses in one hand.
“We came to America six months ago, and we already have our American citizenship,” the man says. “We are voting Kamala Harris. Yesterday we voted in Gwinnett County, and today we are voting in Fulton County.”
The Instagram post was liked more than 6,000 times in five days. It also circulated widely on Threads and Facebook.
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Our rating: False
The video is not authentic. The Georgia Secretary of State called it “targeted disinformation," and federal intelligence officials say it was produced by Russian influence actors to undermine the presidential election.
Video is ‘targeted disinformation,’ not real
While experts have described claims of widespread voter fraud as deeply exaggerated, it remained a key issue during the lead-up to Election Day, with officials and voters vowing to keep close watch for any potential evidence of misconduct.
Fact check: Officials say Kentucky voting glitch an 'isolated incident'
But the Instagram post doesn't show voter fraud. The purported scheme outlined in the clip is a fabrication that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger described as “targeted disinformation.”
In an Oct. 31 post on X, formerly Twitter, Raffensperger characterized the video as "likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos” ahead of the election, adding that it likely was produced by "Russian troll farms."
A day later, three federal intelligence agencies voiced their agreement with Raffensperger’s assessment in a joint statement, concluding that the video was made by Russian influence actors. They reported the determination was based on unspecified information gathered during their investigation and activities observed during prior disinformation campaigns.
The intelligence agencies reached similar conclusions about a "video falsely accusing an individual associated with the Democratic presidential ticket of taking a bribe from a U.S. entertainer."The agencies did not provide details, but the site that initially shared the video in the Instagram post was behind an Oct. 30 post on X falsely claiming Vice President Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, had tipped off now-indicted music producer Sean “Diddy” Combs to a Department of Homeland Security raid in March in exchange for $500,000, as USA TODAY previously reported.
“This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans,” according to the Nov. 1 joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
In a Nov. 2 interview with CNN, Raffensperger pointed out multiple clues that indicate the video in the Instagram post is not authentic. Countering the speaker’s claim that he became a U.S. citizen after six months, he noted, “People don’t come here and get papers, citizenship papers in six months." In general, people must be permanent residents of the U.S. for at least five years, or three years if they are married to a citizen, to qualify for naturalization, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Georgia also does not issue multiple driver's licenses for the same name, Raffensperger said.
“So we knew there, it just didn’t smell right,” he told CNN.
An American social media influencer and supporter of former President Donald Trump told CNN on Nov. 4 that he received $100 from a pro-Kremlin propagandist to post the video in the Instagram post as well as the Emhoff video. The influencer, identified only as @AlphaFox78, his X username, said the payment came from Simeon Boikov – who CNN reported was a participant in past Russian disinformation campaigns. That X user has since deleted the post containing the video.
USA TODAY previously debunked false claims that delayed election results in several states and a typo in Trump’s name on a Virginia voting machine are both evidence of fraud.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post but did not immediately receive a response. The Instagram user could not be reached.
AFP and Lead Stories also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources:
Brad Raffensperger, Oct. 31, X post
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Nov. 1, Joint ODNI, FBI, and CISA Statement on Russian Election Influence Efforts
CNN (YouTube), Nov. 2, ‘Don’t fall for it’: Raffensberger wants Musk to delete viral fake ad on ‘X’
Citizenship and Immigration Services, accessed Nov. 5, 10 Steps to Naturalization
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Phony video shows man talking of voting twice for Harris | Fact check