Twitter is taking action to address what the company says is “potentially misleading information” in some of President Donald Trump’s tweets.
“There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.
He added, “Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265255845358645254
By Tuesday evening, Twitter had added a fact-checking feature to Trump’s tweet that read, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” with a link that led user to a series of tweets and news stories with information about mail-in ballots.
The fact-checking feature also included a “What you need to know” section with background information about Trump’s tweets.
A spokesperson for Twitter told The Washington Post that the tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots.”
Last week, Trump threatened to withhold funding to states if they expand access to mail-in ballots, as IJR reported.
“State of Nevada ‘thinks’ that they can send out illegal vote by mail ballots, creating a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State and the U.S.,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday.
He added, “They can’t! If they do, ‘I think’ I can hold up funds to the State. Sorry, but you must not cheat in elections.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1263094958417985538
While Trump claimed that mail-in ballots lead to fraud, several studies have found that incidents of voter fraud from absentee ballots are incredibly low.
Additionally, many states are looking to expand access to mail-in ballots ahead of the general election to allow voters to cast their ballot without risking exposure to the virus by waiting in lines at polling stations.
