Trump and Musk-fueled falsehoods and threats backdrop US election

Americans went to the polls on Tuesday against a backdrop of misinformation – much of it suspected to have originated in Russia – as the FBI warned of fake videos and non-credible threats of terrorism aimed at disrupting the US presidential election and discouraging voting.

These tensions were stoked by Donald Trump supporters and the former US president himself. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump’s most vocal surrogate, tweeted a video of support that appeared to reference the far-right QAnon ideology.

The video, showing footage of the January 6 insurrection and featuring Van Halen’s song Jump as a soundtrack, came after an earlier social media post from the entrepreneur that repeated elements of the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory from the 2016 presidential election.

“The hammer of justice is coming,” read that earlier post.

The flood of untruths was fed by Trump on Tuesday as he falsely claimed he had a “big lead” in opinion polls while casting doubt on the reliability of voting machines. Having already baselessly claimed that there was Democratic “cheating” in Pennsylvania, the Republican nominee said it was “an outrage” that it took so long to count votes in swing states.

The former president also took liberties with the truth in an early election day video on his Truth Social platform. In an apparent reference to transgender boxers, the video featured Trump complaining that “men could beat up women and win medals” – a supposed example of how American values had collapsed under Joe Biden’s presidency, which the Republican has tied to his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris.

The disinformation and false statements from the Trump campaign came as voting in one key battleground state, Georgia, already faced disruption following what appeared to be fake bomb threats against at least two polling stations.

The threats were made against polling stations at Etris Community Center and Gullatt elementary school in Union City, on the outskirts of Atlanta, according to Fulton county police. Union City’s population is nearly 90% Black, according to the US Census Bureau, fuelling suspicions that the threats were aimed at disrupting a cohort expected to mainly vote for Harris.

Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, told journalists that the “non-credible” threats came from Russia.

“We identified the source, and it was from Russia,” he said, saying he believed that the source had been a Russian troll farm.

“They’re up to mischief, it seems, and they don’t want us to have a smooth, fair and accurate election,” he added. “Anything that can get us to fight amongst ourselves – they can count that as a victory.”

Further threats were later reported against polling stations in Arizona, Michigan and Maine, all of which turned out to be unfounded, officials in all three states said.

Threats were made against four polling locations in Navajo county that were discovered to be “unsubstantiated”, Arizona’s secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, said. He also said officials believed that the threat had originated in Russia.

Bomb threats were made against “a few” polling stations in Michigan that were found to be “non-credible”, a spokesperson for Fontes said.

Police in Maine said swatting calls were made against schools throughout the state. They said there was no danger to the public.

The bomb threats followed a warning from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on Monday that Russia, Iran and China were involved in efforts at election disruption but that Russia was “the most active threat”.

“Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences, judging from information available to the IC [intelligence community],” an ODNI statement said.

“These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials. We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close.”

In line with that statement, the FBI on Tuesday dismissed a video – made to look like a news clip and purporting to emanate from the bureau – advising Americans to “vote remotely” due to a “high terror threat” at polling stations.

“This video is not authentic and does not accurately represent the current threat posture or polling location safety,” the bureau said.

It also disavowed a separate video falsely depicting vote-rigging among incarcerated people.

In a statement, the FBI said there were “two instances of its name and insignia being misused in promoting false narratives surrounding the election”, USA Today reported.

The second video features a fake FBI press release alleging that officials at five prisons in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona rigged voting among incarcerated people and conspired with a political party. “This video is also not authentic, and its contents are false,” the FBI said.

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