2018 Video From Russia Viral As Stuffing Of Ballots In US Elections

A two-year-old CCTV footage from Russia is being shared on social media with captions claiming that the recently concluded US elections were rigged.

BOOM found that the viral footage is from 2018 and was recorded around Presidential elections in Russia in 2018.

Also read Video Of Collection Of Mail-in Ballots Viral As Voter Fraud In California

Misinformation and fake news have flooded social media in the backdrop of the US elections, the results of which have projected Joe Biden to be the 46th and next President of the United States of America.

The viral CCTV footage shows people stuffing more than one ballot paper inside the ballot box at a polling booth. A Hindi caption with the viral post translates to 'When the officials conducting election in the US cast fake votes then Donald J Trump will have to go to the SC'.

(Hindi: अमेरिका में चुनाव कराने वाले खुद जब फ़र्ज़ी वोट डालेंगे तो Donald J. Trump SC तो जायेंगे ना!)

View the viral post below and check its archived version here.

Also read Video Of Collection Of Mail-in Ballots Viral As Voter Fraud In California

The footage is viral with the same caption on Twitter too.

View archive of the tweet here.

Fact Check

BOOM did a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the CCTV footage and found YouTube videos uploaded in March 2018 which had the same visuals.

The video had been uploaded on YouTube channel New Newspaper on March 18, 2018 with a title 'Stuffing ballots in Lyubertsy (translated from Russian by Google)'.

The description with the video reads 'At a polling station in Lyubertsy, ballots were stuffed, the chairman of the precinct election commission and a voting member of the commission were suspended from work'.

We then did a keyword search with 'Ballot paper stuffing in lyubertsy' and found several news reports with screenshots of the same CCTV footage. We also found the same footage uploaded on the YouTube channel of news agency AFP.

The title with the video reads 'CCTV shows apparent ballot stuffing in Russian vote'.

According to the AFP report, CCTV footage provided to the election observers by Russia's electoral commission showed irregularities at a polling station in Russia's Lyubertsy on outskirts of Moscow.

A report published in Associated Press on March 19, 2018 also stated about the voting violations in Russia's presidential election.

Washington Post had also shared the same CCTV footage on March 19, 2018 under the headline Videos online show blatant ballot-stuffing in Russia. Another report on the same incident can be accessed here.

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