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The video was posted by the QAnon aligned account on X, formerly known as Twitter, 1776 @TheWakeninq on Thursday afternoon, but the video had been removed at the time of publishing.
It had shown a Bucks County mail-in ballot being opened, seeing votes cast for former President Donald Trump and U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick, and then being torn up.
The caption for the post read as follows:
"Breaking: Destruction of Trump mail-in ballots caught on camera in Bucks County, PA. 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!”
The Bucks County Board of Elections, The Bucks County District Attorney's Office, the Yardley Borough Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, "concluded that this video was fabricated in an attempt to undermine confidence in the upcoming election," as stated in a release shared just before 6 p.m.
A bipartisan state by the county's Board of Elections said:
"The envelope and materials depicted in this video are clearly not authentic materials belonging to or distributed by the Bucks County Board of Elections."
People on social media pointed out that the envelopes in the video were glossy and the wrong shade of green.
The Board of Elections – Chair Bob Harvie, Vice Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia, and Gene DiGirolamo – have issued the following bipartisan statement:
“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. The Board of Elections unequivocally condemns this purposeful spreading of dangerous disinformation. We will not be distracted from the job the voters of Bucks County have entrusted to us.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released the following statement on Friday, night, Oct. 25:
“The IC assesses that Russian actors manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an individual ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, judging from information available to the IC and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities. Local election officials have already debunked the video’s content. This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans, as detailed in prior ODNI election updates. In the lead up to election day and in the weeks and months after, the IC expects Russia to create and release additional media content that seeks to undermine trust in the integrity of the election and divide Americans.”Click here to read our full guide to mail-in ballots in PA.
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