Berliners will vote in state and district elections on September 20. In the days leading up to the vote, a video circulated on social media that allegedly shows a man opening postal voting envelopes and destroying ballots cast for the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

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

How widely has the video spread? And is its reach driven by genuine public interest? Or is something else boosting its visibility? DW Fact check investigated the video and the accounts sharing it.

Claim: A video shows a man destroying AfD ballots in Berlin with a carpet knife. 

One post sharing the footage claims:

"A video circulating in Berlin shows a man opening mail-in voting envelopes and destroying ballots marked for the AfD, while 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 post had received about 327,000 views when DW Fact Check reviewed it on September 18. 

DW Fact check: False

At first glance, the ballot paper appears authentic. Its names and layout match those of the official ballot paper for the Spandau 2 constituency in western Berlin, which is publicly available online. However, there are several inconsistencies in the documents shown in the video.

Berlin's state returning officer, Stephan Bröchler, told DW that the documents shown in the video are not authentic election papers from Berlin. 

Bröchler said the envelopes shown in the video did not match the official ones used for this election. Bröchler also noted that the way the envelopes are sealed appears suspicious. 

According to official guidelines issued by Berlin's election authorities, postal voters receive a voting package containing a "Wahlschein," or a voter declaration that needs to be signed, plus two envelopes and the ballot papers for the elections. For the September 20 vote, Berliners receive two ballot papers: a grey-and-blue ballot for the election to the city-state House of Representatives and an orange ballot for their District Assembly. 

In the video, however, the documents do not correspond to the official postal voting package. The person in the video opens a red envelope and removes a white envelope. The signed voter declaration is missing. Without it, a mail-in ballot would be invalid.

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

Although voters may choose to vote in only one of the two elections, it would be unusual for three envelopes in succession to contain only one ballot paper. However, the footage does not clearly show whether the second envelope is really empty.

Another detail raises doubts about the video's authenticity: In the background, large grey bins allegedly containing postal ballots are marked with a version of Berlin's coat of arms featuring the Berlin bear.  

Bröchler said such features were not used by Berlin's election authorities.

"Marking the ballot boxes with a Berlin bear is also unknown and uncommon here," he said.

Bröchler's conclusion is clear: "It can be ruled out that any actual Berlin election documents are involved. The video is clearly intended to discredit postal voting." 

Has the video really gone viral?

One of the accounts that shared the video has previously come under scrutiny. An investigation by the Lithuania-based research organization Debunk linked the account to the so-called "Sprinter" network, a group of X accounts. The researchers identified what they described as signs of coordinated and inauthentic activity, including unusually high posting volumes, frequent account renaming and evidence of purchased followers. Debunk said the network was used to amplify pro-Kremlin narratives.

DW Fact check reviewed more than 15 other posts sharing the footage, many of them using nearly identical captions. Together, the posts had accumulated more than 3.2 million views by the time DW Fact check examined them.

The accounts sharing the video also showed several suspicious characteristics. Almost all of the 15 accounts examined exhibited at least one sign of potentially inauthentic behavior, including rapid follower growth, frequent username changes or limited evidence of normal user engagement.

One account, which presented itself as an independent media company based in West Asia, had more than 43,000 followers despite having been created only in April 2026. During that period, the account changed its username nine times.

On their own, these characteristics do not prove that the accounts are coordinated or that the video's engagement was entirely artificially generated. They do, however, show that the video's apparent reach should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of widespread, organic discussion on X.

A pattern seen before

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

Ahead of the September 6 election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, DW Fact check examined a video that similarly purported to show AfD postal ballots being destroyed. The claim was false. 

Among other inconsistencies, all three crossed-out ballots shown in the footage carried the same name on the signed voter declaration. The envelopes had already been opened, and the ballots lacked a hole punch required for use with voting templates designed for blind and visually impaired voters. 

DW Fact check has also investigated and debunked numerous other false claims targeting Germany's postal voting system.

Julia Smirnova, who investigates influence operations as a researcher at the Berlin-based Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS), told DW that these similarities, together with the way the new video is being disseminated, indicate that it is "highly likely" to be part of the Storm-1516 influence operation.

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

The operation has previously used fabricated videos, forged documents and purported eyewitness accounts to spread false narratives about elections and other political issues. 

In February 2025, Germany's Interior Ministry said it had indications that two fake videos alleging manipulation of AfD ballots were connected to the Storm 1516 campaign, citing similarities in their content and distribution.

Edited by: Thomas Sparrow