US Election: Eric Trump shares fake ballot burning viral video

Eric Trump shared the fake video on Wednesday.
Eric Trump shared the fake video on Wednesday. Photo credit: Getty Images / City of Virginia Beach

A viral "ballot" burning video shared by Donald Trump's son Eric is fake, according to local officials.

The video surfaced on Tuesday, which was election day in the US, and showed a person with a plastic bag full of what look like voting papers. They then soaked the "ballots" with a flammable liquid and set them alight, CNN reports.

The person's face isn't shown in the video but they claim the 80 false ballots are "all for President Trump". While the location also isn't mentioned in the video, the names on the paper correspond to the Virginia Beach, Virginia race.

However, City of Virginia Beach officials confirmed later on Tuesday (local time) that the ballots shown in the video are fake.

"A concerned citizen shared a video with us that ostensibly shows someone burning ballots. They are not official ballots, they are sample ballots," it said on its website.

It added the sample ballots shown don't have bar code markings that are on all official ballots.

"Fire investigators are looking into the illegal burning."

City of Virginia Beach officials shared a screenshot of the fake video (left) and compared it to the official ballot (right).
City of Virginia Beach officials shared a screenshot of the fake video (left) and compared it to the official ballot (right). Photo credit: City of Virginia Beach

Even though the video was declared fake on Tuesday, Eric Trump shared it to Twitter on Wednesday by retweeting an account that posted it. The account he retweeted it from has since been suspended by Twitter, meaning the video can't be seen on his page.

According to CNN, the video Trump shared had about 1.2 million views, and three other accounts that posted the same video had over 115,000 combined views.

Biden has been declared the winner of Virginia, having received 53.8 percent of the vote compared to Trump earning 44.6 percent. An estimated 94 percent of votes have been reported there, according to the New York Times