A video circulating on X purported to show a Donald Trump voter being attacked by two Kamala Harris supporters at a polling station in Wisconsin.

That didn’t happen, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission said, and an expert on social media disinformation said the video was Russian disinformation.

“BUSINESS: CCTV captures moment WI Trump voter assaulted by two Kamala Harris thugs at Wisconsin polling station,” said a long November 5 X post by an Australian political commentator.

The post shared a video without sound of what appears to be a polling station with three people casting their votes. In the video, a man wearing a red hat — presumably with President-elect Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan on it — approaches with a ballot, and a man voting in a white Harris hoodie confronts him and pushes him out of the the radius of the room. . Then another person in a red hoodie assaults the Trump voter, who is seen falling to the floor.

But that didn’t happen at a polling place in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Election Commission spokesman Joel DeSpain wrote in an email to PolitiFact.

“We have received no report from law enforcement and no report from any polling place in Wisconsin that this incident occurred in the Badger State,” DeSpain said.

NewsGuard, a company that tracks fake narratives online, RECORDED that Wisconsin does not allow it people to wear politically themed attire, such as Trump hats or Harris hoodies, inside polling stations.

(Screenshot from X)

Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University’s Watt Family Innovation Center, said in a November 5 X post that the video is disinformation created by Storm-1516, a Russian-influenced operation.

Storm-1516 was behind two recent Pants on Fire! fake videos that claimed to show illegal Haitian immigrants in the US saying he’s voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia and an election official in Bucks County, Pennsylvania destruction of postal ballots.

Linvill said he and his colleagues at Clemson have watched Storm-1516 for the past year and “are very familiar with its tactics, techniques and procedures.” Media Forensics Hub first identified the Russian network in December 2023, it said in a statement October report.

Linvill told PolitiFact that there were several reasons why they attributed the Wisconsin video to Storm-1516, including the video’s attempt to incite violence and the group’s previous videos targeting the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Georgia.

“The originating account (Scott Goldberg, using the X handle @izzagg) is an account that only recently started posting,” Linvill said, adding that it’s consistent with how Storm-1516 has created videos in the past — by creating account and making videos that “seem plausible enough to be convincing if you don’t look too cool.”

Another hallmark of Storm-1516 is that the video, which is shot from above, doesn’t show faces or anything that could identify anyone, Linvill said.

Linvill said Storm-1516 used an account called @AlertChannel, which is part of their regular distribution network, to boost the video.

The group also tapped Jamie McIntyre, “an Australian influencer who joined the distribution network a few months ago,” Linvill said.

I found another Australian account video sharing on X. Since November 7, X had suspended @AlertChannel and Scott Golberg (@izzaag) accounts that originally shared it.

X suspended three accounts that shared Russian disinformation about the election, including the video from Wisconsin, CBS News reported. I reached out to X via email for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

Linvill said it’s likely McIntyre’s account wasn’t suspended because he’s a public figure and a real person, he said. Linvill said the Goldberg account was a fake and @Alertchannel was anonymous and therefore easier to suspend.

Our decision

An X post claimed to show a video of a Trump supporter being assaulted by two Harris supporters at a polling station in Wisconsin.

But a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission said it had not received reports of an attack at a polling station. A disinformation expert said the video bears the hallmarks of Storm-1516, a Russian disinformation campaign that targeted swing states in the 2024 US election.

We rate the Pants on Fire claim!

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