Video shows Haitians who claim they’re voting for Harris in multiple Georgia counties. That’s fake

A viral video invokes an election swing state. It presents dubious documents. The narrator admits to an egregious offense related to voting in the 2024 presidential election. Sound familiar? 

It’s the latest video that officials suspect originated from Russian actors trying to sow chaos ahead of the election and it follows a pattern we’ve seen in other recent videos.

The video surfaced Oct. 31 in multiple X posts showing a man who appears to be in a vehicle with other people. He claims they are Haitians who "came to America six months ago" and have already gained American citizenship. 

"We’re voting Kamala Harris," he said. "Yesterday we voted in Gwinnett County and today we are voting in Fulton County." Both counties are in Georgia, a swing state.

The camera flips to show the man holding four driver’s licenses, with what appears to be the same photo in all of them. Another hand appears in the frame, holding four more driver’s licenses. The second set of driver’s licenses uses a different photo. 

"We have all our documents, driver’s license," the man said. "We invite all Haitians to come to America and bring families."

A "Harris Walz" cap is visible in the background.

"Breaking: illegal Haitian migrants voting multiple times in the Georgia election," read an Oct. 31 X post. "Election fraud in plain sight." The claim was also shared on X’s Election Integrity Community, which was launched by Elon Musk’s political action committee for members to "share potential incidents of voter fraud." 

(Screenshot from X)

Election-related falsehoods, such as the claim that voters in Tarrant County, Texas, were reporting instances of machines flipping votes, have spread in this group, which now has more  than 58,000 members.  

There were already signs the video was dubious: Why would anyone admit to voter fraud on camera while brandishing their personal information? When you look closely at the details, more falsehoods appear.

Authorities have debunked the claim and linked it to Russian actors. In a Nov. 1 joint statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said, "Russian influence actors manufactured a recent video that falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia."

"This judgment is based on information available to the IC (intelligence community) and prior activities of other Russian influence actors, including videos and other disinformation activities," the statement read.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger issued a statement Oct. 31 calling the video "false" and "an example of targeted disinformation."

"It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the 2024 Presidential election," his statement read.

Raffensperger said the federal cybersecurity agency is investigating the matter, and urged X owner Elon Musk and the heads of other social media platforms to take down the video. 

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

Georgia Secretary of State Chief Operating Officer Gabriel Sterling also disputed the claim on X, saying, "This is not true. It is classic disinformation. The likeliest suspect is a Russian troll farm."

The names in the two IDs were readable: Raoul Sylvan and Jacques Benoit. Their dates of birth are also visible. When PolitiFact did searches using these names and birthdays in Gwinnett and Fulton counties, no results appeared on Georgia’s voter page. PolitiFact also tested for other potential variations, such as "Jacques Bencit."

The addresses in the driver’s licenses are in Lawrenceville and Duluth, which are both in Gwinnett County.

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Hany Farid, a University of California, Berkeley, professor who specializes in digital forensics, told PolitiFact the video had no signs of artificial intelligence generation or manipulation, and that it seems "simply staged." 

"If you view the video at full resolution, you can see the eyes (of) the person talking scanning back and forth as if he is reading from a script," Farid said. "This is a cheap — and pretty lazy — fake."

Siwei Lyu, University at Buffalo professor and director of its Media Forensic Lab, agreed with Farid, saying the video exhibits no significant deepfake markers. "This is likely to be a real video, but the story may not be," Lyu said.

Darren Linvill, a Clemson University communication professor who has been tracking Russian disinformation, said on X that the video has "several hallmarks of the Russian, Storm-1516 campaign." Linvill also co-directs Clemson University’s Watt Family Innovation Center Media Forensics Hub.

The same campaign was believed to have been behind the viral video of an election worker allegedly ripping up ballots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. We rated that claim Pants on Fire!

In an email to PolitiFact, Linvill said his team spots narratives from Storm-1516 based on their narrative focus, style and production and distribution network. "This one, for instance, is attacking election integrity, a focus of Russian disinformation for many years," Linvill said.

He said that based on Storm-1516’s record of hiring actors from West Africa, it’s likely the people in this video also are West African immigrants who were recruited from St. Petersburg, Russia. Linville previously said the person in the video about Bucks County ballots being destroyed also seemed to have a West African accent and was likely from the same area.

Linvill said his team tracks a network of pro-Russian websites and social media accounts that Storm-1516 is "known to use." He said in this case, the campaign used an X account called "Alphafox" that Linvill described as "a guy in Massachusets they have used before."

NewsGuard also found the post of "Alphafox" — now unavailable but archived here — to be the narrative’s earliest version.

Haitians have been a target of misinformation worsened by claims that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets. Former President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee Ohio Sen. JD Vance amplified these claims.

The video doesn’t show Haitians voting for Harris multiple times in different Georgia counties. We rate that claim Pants on Fire!

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.