Citation

Project Veritas #BallotHarvesting Amplification

Author:
Garcia-Camargo, Isabella; Stamos, Alex; Cryst, Elena; Bak-Coleman, Joe; Starbird, Kate; Schafer, Joey
Year:
2020

On Sunday night, a right-wing activist group, Project Veritas, released a video alleging illegal ballot harvesting in Minnesota. The video made several falsifiable claims that have either been debunked by subsequent reporting or are without any factual support. As the video calls into question the integrity of the election using misleading or inaccurate information, we determined this video to be a form of election disinformation. While we have reported our findings to the relevant online platforms, this video stands as an interesting example of what a domestic, coordinated elite disinformation campaign looks like in the United States. This post will explore the timeline of how the ideas in this video were initially seeded and then aggressively spread.