False video alleges Berlin votes destroyed

Berliners will vote in state and district elections on September 20. In the times main as much as the vote, a video circulated on social media that allegedly reveals a person opening postal voting envelopes and destroying ballots solid for the far-right occasion Alternative for Germany (AfD).

DW Fact check reviewed greater than a dozen posts sharing the footage. The posts use comparable captions, presenting the video as proof of election fraud in Germany. Several have amassed hundreds of thousands of views on X.

How broadly has the video unfold? And is its attain pushed by real public curiosity? Or is one thing else boosting its visibility? DW Fact examine investigated the video and the accounts sharing it.

Claim: A video reveals a person destroying AfD ballots in Berlin with a carpet knife. 

One post sharing the footage claims:

“A video circulating in Berlin reveals a person opening mail-in voting envelopes and destroying ballots marked for the AfD, whereas ballots for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU are left intact. The footage appeared days after the AfD’s landslide victory in Saxony-Anhalt. Berlin holds its state election on September 20.”

The put up had acquired about 327,000 views when DW Fact Check reviewed it on September 18. 

DW Fact examine: False

At first look, the poll paper seems genuine. Its names and structure match these of the official poll paper for the Spandau 2 constituency in western Berlin, which is publicly available online. However, there are a number of inconsistencies within the paperwork proven within the video.

Berlin’s state returning officer, Stephan Bröchler, advised DW that the paperwork proven within the video will not be genuine election papers from Berlin. 

Bröchler stated the envelopes proven within the video didn’t match the official ones used for this election. Bröchler additionally famous that the way in which the envelopes are sealed seems suspicious. 

According to official guidelines issued by Berlin’s election authorities, postal voters obtain a voting bundle containing a “Wahlschein,” or a voter declaration that must be signed, plus two envelopes and the poll papers for the elections. For the September 20 vote, Berliners obtain two poll papers: a grey-and-blue poll for the election to the city-state House of Representatives and an orange poll for his or her District Assembly. 

In the video, nonetheless, the paperwork don’t correspond to the official postal voting bundle. The particular person within the video opens a pink envelope and removes a white envelope. The signed voter declaration is lacking. Without it, a mail-in poll can be invalid.

The particular person then takes out solely the grey-and-blue poll paper for the Berlin House of Representatives from the white envelope.

Although voters could select to vote in solely one of many two elections, it will be uncommon for 3 envelopes in succession to include just one poll paper. However, the footage doesn’t clearly present whether or not the second envelope is basically empty.

Another element raises doubts in regards to the video’s authenticity: In the background, massive gray bins allegedly containing postal ballots are marked with a model of Berlin’s coat of arms that includes the Berlin bear.  

Bröchler stated such options weren’t utilized by Berlin’s election authorities.

“Marking the poll containers with a Berlin bear can also be unknown and unusual right here,” he stated.

Bröchler’s conclusion is obvious: “It might be dominated out that any precise Berlin election paperwork are concerned. The video is clearly supposed to discredit postal voting.” 

Has the video actually gone viral?

One of the accounts that shared the video has beforehand come beneath scrutiny. An investigation by the Lithuania-based analysis group Debunk linked the account to the so-called “Sprinter” community, a bunch of X accounts. The researchers recognized what they described as indicators of coordinated and inauthentic exercise, together with unusually excessive posting volumes, frequent account renaming and proof of bought followers. Debunk stated the community was used to amplify pro-Kremlin narratives.

DW Fact examine reviewed greater than 15 different posts sharing the footage, a lot of them utilizing almost similar captions. Together, the posts had accrued greater than 3.2 million views by the point DW Fact examine examined them.

The accounts sharing the video additionally confirmed a number of suspicious traits. Almost all the 15 accounts examined exhibited a minimum of one signal of probably inauthentic conduct, together with fast follower progress, frequent username adjustments or restricted proof of regular person engagement.

One account, which offered itself as an impartial media firm based mostly in West Asia, had greater than 43,000 followers regardless of having been created solely in April 2026. During that interval, the account changed its username 9 instances.

On their very own, these traits don’t show that the accounts are coordinated or that the video’s engagement was solely artificially generated. They do, nonetheless, present that the video’s obvious attain mustn’t mechanically be interpreted as proof of widespread, natural dialogue on X.

A sample seen earlier than

The video resembles other false election-related claims which have circulated about Germany in latest months.

Ahead of the September 6 election within the jap state of Saxony-Anhalt, DW Fact check examined a video that equally purported to indicate AfD postal ballots being destroyed. The declare was false. 

Among different inconsistencies, all three crossed-out ballots proven within the footage carried the identical identify on the signed voter declaration. The envelopes had already been opened, and the ballots lacked a gap punch required to be used with voting templates designed for blind and visually impaired voters. 

DW Fact examine has additionally investigated and debunked quite a few different false claims targeting Germany’s postal voting system.

Julia Smirnova, who investigates affect operations as a researcher on the Berlin-based Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS), advised DW that these similarities, along with the way in which the brand new video is being disseminated, point out that it’s “extremely probably” to be a part of the Storm-1516 affect operation.

German security authorities and researchers have attributed Storm-1516 to Russia. 

The operation has beforehand used fabricated movies, cast paperwork and purported eyewitness accounts to unfold false narratives about elections and different political points. 

In February 2025, Germany’s Interior Ministry said it had indications that two faux movies alleging manipulation of AfD ballots had been linked to the Storm 1516 marketing campaign, citing similarities of their content material and distribution.

Edited by: Thomas Sparrow