Haitian migrant voting video is suspected Russian disinformation

"Illegal Haitians flown into the US claim they received all necessary documents and driver's licenses within just six months of arriving in the U.S. and are able to vote!!" said a since-deleted October 31, 2024 post from an X account called "@Alphafox78," which has previously spread disinformation.

"They show several Georgia driver's licenses featuring the same photo and claim to have voted for Kamala Harris in two different counties so far: Gwinnett and Fulton. This is insane!! Imagine how many others are doing this!!"

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Screenshot from X taken October 31, 2024

The video shows a man speaking from what appears to be the inside of a vehicle filled with other men. At the end of the recording, he brandishes what appear to be multiple driver's licenses mocked up with different names and addresses.

"We are from Haiti. We came to America six months ago, and we already have our American citizenship. We are voting Kamala Harris," the man says. "Yesterday we voted in Gwinnett County and today we are today we are voting in Fulton County. We have all our documents, driver's license. We invite all Haitians to come to America and bring families."

Similar posts rocketed across X as early voters hit the polls in the contest between Vice President Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Several popped up in the so-called "Election Integrity Community" that billionaire Trump surrogate and X owner Elon Musk created to "share potential incidents of voter fraud or irregularities." Amy Kremer, a representative of Georgia on the Republican National Committee, also shared the @Alphafox78 post.

The posts spread a false narrative. 

Newly arrived migrants cannot vote -- and becoming a US citizen takes at least five years in most cases, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (archived here). Asylum seekers wait an average of 4.2 years to have their cases heard in court (archived here).

The posts come as the 2024 presidential race is inundated with disinformation, including false claims promoted by Trump on the debate stage in September that Haitian immigrants in a small Ohio town were eating other residents' pets.

The latest clip is a fabrication, officials say.

According to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, it is part of a targeted disinformation campaign that likely originated from Russia (archived here and here).

"Earlier today, our office became aware of a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant with multiple Georgia ID's claiming to have voted multiple times," Raffensperger said in an October 31 statement.

"This is false and is an example of targeted disinformation we've seen this and other elections. It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the 2024 Presidential election."

Raffensperger, who rose to national prominence after the 2020 presidential vote where he refused Trump's demands to change the state's results, added that he was asking Musk and the leaders of other social media companies to help take the clip down.

"This is obviously fake and part of a disinformation effort," he said. "Likely it is a production of Russian troll farms."

In a joint November 1 statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the US intelligence community had reached the same conclusion (archived here).

"The IC assesses that Russian influence actors manufactured a recent video that falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia," the statement said.

Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state's office, also posted to X, calling the video "classic disinformation" and criticizing those who amplified it (archived here and here).

Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for the secretary of state's office, told AFP that the state made its determination by checking the names and other information on the driver's licenses in the video. 

"We checked the voter registration lists," Hassinger said in a November 1 email. "There was no match. The identifications are fake, and there's no way the people in the video cast ballots in Georgia using those IDs."

Journalists from BBC Verify matched two of the addresses from the licenses in the video to non-residential addresses  -- and separately matched the face on the licenses to a stock image (archived here, here, here and here).

Signs point to Russia, expert says

The video appears to be the work of a Russian propaganda group that researchers have dubbed Storm-1516, said Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub. His team uncovered the network in 2023 and has followed it closely in the run-up to the 2024 election (archived here and here).

"This one has several small clues it is Storm-1516," Linvill told AFP in a November 1 email. 

Linvill said the video's focus on attacking election integrity -- a favorite narrative for Russian disinformation campaigns -- as well as its use of a man who appears to be of West African heritage and distribution online were all consistent with prior Storm-1516 fakes.

"They were very careful in how they filmed it not to give anything away to OSINT investigators," Linvill said, using an acronym for open-source intelligence. "Importantly, they also use what are likely West African actors, frequently recruited from the St. Petersburg area."

The @Alphafox78 account, the first Linvill's team found spreading the video, has also laundered the Storm-1516 group's disinformation in the past, he said. 

The US intelligence community has warned that the Russian campaign aims to undermine Americans' confidence in the election. AFP previously reported that Storm-1516 was behind a falsified video making unfounded sexual abuse accusations against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and another fake clip purporting to show a man tearing up Pennsylvania ballots cast for Trump. 

AFP has debunked other false claims about the election here.