Twitter hit a warning label on Sunday in one of President Donald Trump’s tweets about voice-by-post, saying the post violated the company’s bylaws around elections, but that it would not be removed.
“This tweet sparked Twitter Rules on civic and electoral integrity, “read the label.” However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public interest for the tweet to remain accessible. “
The label was confirmed in a tweet Sunday morning in which Trump claimed, “Mail Drop Boxes … are a voter safety disaster,” parts a wildly dubious assertion that “they enable a person to vote multiple times.”
‘Whoever controls them, will they be placed in Republican or Democratic areas?’ Trump added. “They are not sanitizing Covid. A great fraud!”
Twitter has previously given such tags to other Trump tweets, including some related to mail-in votes. The company has taken a more aggressive approach to misinformation as the election approaches, although the effort has been met with backwardness from conservative circles. After Twitter initially checked Trump tweets about mail-in voting, Trump voted again by signing an executive order targeting companies on social media.
Trump has repeatedly tried to raise doubts about the legitimacy of mail-on voting, which has encouraged or expanded many states amid the coronavirus pandemic. The allegations, many of which are misleading or false, are an extension of Trump’s years-long allegations of widespread voter fraud, of which there is no evidence.
The Trump campaign is currently pursuing Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, to prevent voters from using dropboxes to cast their ballots. A federal judge earlier this month launched the campaign to provide examples that dropboxes were vulnerable to fraud, but the campaign came up short.
