Claims around foreign nationals illegally voting attempt to sow doubt on US election integrity

30 October 2024


Over the past 48 hours, ISD analysts have been monitoring a network of X accounts posting claims that they voted illegally as foreign nationals in the US election, along with pictures of marked ballots and passports from around the world. At the time of writing, the most popular post, which was promoted by X via push notification, had gained more than 11.7 million views on the platform. A sample of 50 accounts in the network gained more than 14 million views, 160,000 likes, and 10,000 retweets on posts about their alleged voter fraud. All but one of the identified posts included an image of a ballot marked for the Trump-Vance ticket. It is not clear at this time who is behind the network. 

The claims appear to be part of an effort to mislead voters by playing on recent fear mongering about noncitizens casting ballots in the presidential election. In recent months, actors pushing this narrative have increasingly focused on unfounded claims that the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) will enable ineligible overseas ballots to be cast and counted. Prior to this effort, baseless narratives about noncitizens voting illegally focused on claims that Vice President Kamala Harris would be the primary beneficiary. In contrast, this campaign purports to show former President Donald Trump receiving illegal votes. 

These accounts appear coordinated, with the largest account referring to the network as “my group” and many of the accounts posting identical language and images. The accounts also frequently interact with each other. As new posts continue to appear, X seems to be surfacing this content to its users. ISD analysts received a push notification highlighting the campaign’s largest account, even though they were not previously following it. While the messages have largely been posted to X, they have also been amplified on Telegram and 4chan. 

The campaign appears to have started on October 22, when one account posted: “I’m going to illegally vote for Donald Trump as a European national.” Two days later, the same account shared images from an airplane window with the caption: “Patriots landed last night. Made contact with out liaisons. We’re now en route to ballot locations. #Q.” On October 27, it posted an image of a ballot with the Trump-Vance ticket marked next to an image of a French passport. The post read, “Democrats had it coming for not enforcing voter ID laws.” In less than 24 hours, that post was seen 6.9 million times and gained 99,000 likes and 6,700 retweets. This account had only posted 18 times before promoting its alleged illegal voting scheme.  

Other accounts posted nearly identical content. On October 23, another account said it planned to vote illegally for Trump as a European national. It later shared an image of a ballot marked for Trump-Vance next to an Irish passport. Dozens of other accounts shared similar or identical images of ballots alongside passports from more than 30 countries. Several accounts posted images of passports for states that no longer exist, including from the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Prussia. 

The posts claimed to have voted illegally in swing states, attacked Democrats and praised Trump. One post said, “I’m in Pennsylvania right now. Already voted in 9 districts!” Several posts repeated the claim that “Democrats had it coming for not enforcing voter ID laws.” Another stated, “Checkmate libtards. Should have passed those voter ID laws.” Many voiced support for Trump, including one account that claimed to be from Turkey and called Trump “the lion of Allah.” The single post that supported the Harris-Walz ticket used #TrumpRacist and #LGBTQIA. 

The campaign has not been shared widely across platforms, though some Telegram channels and far-right message boards have picked it up. Multiple Telegram channels that routinely attack the West and promote Russian propaganda shared the campaign’s most viral post, enabling it to gain tens of thousands of additional views. That same post also surfaced on 4chan. Notably, the second 4chan post under the image of the ballot and passport photos argued that the passport was a fake. 

Election integrity as a target of information operations  

This seemingly coordinated effort to spread claims of foreign nationals illegally voting comes just eight days before Election Day. It also comes on the heels of a fake video of someone ripping up ballots in Pennsylvania, which the US intelligence community linked to a Russia-based troll farm known as Storm 1516, and months of unfounded claims by far-right commentators that noncitizen voting could impact the election’s outcome. 

Right now, it is unclear who is behind the effort to claim foreign nationals are casting ballots. Regardless, given this threat landscape, it is critical for platforms like X to appropriately label these types of posts. So far, outside of a proposed community note on the original post, there has been no apparent effort to stem the spread of these claims.

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