Video of man destroying Pennsylvania ballots is fake

"Breaking: Destruction of Trump mail-in ballots caught on camera in Bucks County, PA," said an October 24, 2024 post on X, which racked up millions of engagements before it was deleted. "This shocking footage must be investigated immediately! If true, this could be a serious threat to the integrity of the election. It’s becoming clearer that this is the only way Democrats think they can win this election!"

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Screenshot from X taken October 24, 2024

The post came from an account called "@TheWakeninq," which promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory and was previously among the first to post a falsified video accusing vice presidential candidate Tim Walz of sexual assault.

Similar posts sharing the video quickly reverberated across the platform, where disinformation has thrived since Elon Musk bought it in 2022.

In the clip, a man opens up what appear to be returned mail-in ballots from Bucks County north of Philadelphia, ripping up votes cast for Trump while preserving those marked for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

The man, whose face is not visible, repeatedly curses about Trump throughout the recording.

But the clip does not show real ballots, according to the county's board of elections, which called it "dangerous disinformation."

"The Bucks County Board of Elections is aware of a video circulated this afternoon on social media purporting to show Bucks County mail-in ballots being opened and destroyed," the county said in a statement posted after AFP made contact and asked the county's elections board for comment. "This video is fake."

"The envelope and materials depicted in this video are clearly not authentic materials belonging to or distributed by the Bucks County Board of Elections."

Reached by AFP, the Pennsylvania Department of State referred to the county elections board's statement.

The Bucks County district attorney's office said in a separate statement that it had investigated the video and concluded it was "fabricated" (archived here).

Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, reviewed the falsified video at AFP's request and said in an October 24 email that it appears to be the work of a Russian propaganda group that researchers have dubbed Storm-1516 (archived here).

"We assess that this is Storm-1516," Linvill, whose team uncovered the network in 2023, told AFP.

He said the clip's quality, use of a man with what sounds like a West African accent and distribution through the "@TheWakeninq" account are all consistent with the disinformation campaign.

Other Storm-1516 fakes have featured people who appear to be of West African heritage, and "@TheWakeninq" has regularly amplified the campaign's narratives dating back to its earliest falsehoods, he said.

Following the publication of this fact check, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a joint October 25 statement saying the intelligence community "assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania" (archived here). AFP had previously sent the video to the ODNI and FBI for comment.

The ODNI warned of Russian influence efforts in an October 22 election security memo, saying the intelligence community expects Russia to amplify false information about the election to undermine Americans' confidence in the process and results (archived here).

Fake ballots

James O'Malley, deputy director of communications for Bucks County, told AFP in an October 24 email that the ballots in the falsified video do not match those used by the county, all of which he said are stored in a secure location under 24-hour video surveillance.

"The envelopes shown in the fake video are clearly glossy," O'Malley said. "We do not use glossy envelopes. And the colors on the paper shown in the fake video are wrong."

Photos of the county's mail-in ballots -- and an instructional video the county posted to its YouTube channel -- show the return envelopes are a different shade of green than those in the fake (archived here and here).

AFP separately observed that while a box in the fake video is labeled for Yardley Borough, one of the supposed ballots appears to be marked for Doylestown Township.

The Bucks County Republican Committee, which said it investigated the video with the Trump campaign, also highlighted various discrepancies in an October 24 post on X (archived here).

"The video is fake, with things such as the color of the envelopes being the wrong shade of green, the paper is not the same quality used by the Bucks County Board of Elections, the envelopes lack a return address, and no employee at Bucks County Board of Election meets the description of the person in the video," the committee said.

"Furthermore, no mail-in or absentee ballots have been or will be opened and counted until election day on November 5."

The committee said the county's elections system "works and is safe," calling the video "disinformation, aimed at scaring voters and dissuading them from using mail-in ballots."

Steve Santarsiero, chair of the Bucks County Democratic Party, likewise released a statement October 24 calling the video "obviously fraudulent" (archived here).

Some posts sharing the clip on X have since been marked with a notice saying they may violate the platform's civic integrity policy, which prohibits using X to manipulate or interfere in elections.

AFP has debunked other disinformation about the election here.