President Trump’s reelection campaign accused Twitter of “political bias” after it added fact checks to two of his tweets regarding mail-in voting in California.
“We always knew that Silicon Valley would pull out all the stops to obstruct and interfere with President Trump getting his message through to voters. Partnering with the biased fake news media ‘fact checkers’ is only a smoke screen Twitter is using to try to lend their obvious political tactics some false credibility,” said Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager.
The rebuke comes after Twitter slapped fact checks on tweets by Trump claiming without evidence that mail-in voting is particularly susceptible to fraud.
“These Tweets contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots,” a spokesperson for the social media platform told The Hill, citing a recent blog post on misinformation policies.
The checks come as Trump continues to rail against mail-in voting, which several states are considering expanding to allow voters to cast ballots while following social distancing guidelines. The president has specifically targeted California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for working to expand mail-in voting.
“There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed,” Trump said in one of the tweets that was flagged for a fact check.
No evidence has emerged to suggest that mail-in voting is susceptible to widespread fraud.
Twitter’s warning, which urges users to “get the facts about mail-in ballots,” leads to a page on Twitter giving an explanation of the factual errors in the tweets as well as links to various outlets covering the tweets.
“Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to ‘a Rigged Election.’ However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud,” it reads under the heading “What you need to know.”
“Trump falsely claimed that California will send mail-in ballots to ‘anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there.’ In fact, only registered voters will receive ballots. Though Trump targeted California, mail-in ballots are already used in some states, including Oregon, Utah and Nebraska,” it adds.