Trump accuses Twitter of 'interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election' after it fact-checked his false tweets about voting by mail, Business Insider - Business Insider Singapore
by Sonam Sheth, Business Insider US- President Donald Trump accused Twitter on Tuesday of “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election” after it fact-checked two of his tweets pushing conspiracies about voting by mail in California.
- “They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post,” Trump tweeted. “Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!”
- The president’s rant came after Twitter added links to two of Trump’s earlier tweets prompting users to “get the facts” about mail-in ballots.
- Clicking on the link took users to a “Moments” page with a section titled, “What you need to know.”
- The section summarized Trump’s claims and points out that fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud, that only registered voters receive ballots, and that multiple states in addition to California use mail-in ballots.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused Twitter of “interfering” in the 2020 election after it fact-checked two of his tweets pushing conspiracies about voting by mail.
“.@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump tweeted. “They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post … Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!”
The president’s rant against the social-media platform came after Twitter added links to two of Trump’s tweets earlier in the day saying, without evidence, that mail-in ballots in California are “substantially fraudulent” and will result in a “Rigged Election.”
“There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” Trump tweeted. “Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed.”
He added: “The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone … living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!”
As of Tuesday evening, Twitter added a link to each tweet giving users the option to “get the facts about mail-in ballots.”
Clicking on the link takes users to a Twitter “Moments” page titled, “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.”
Near the top, there’s a section titled, “What you need to know,” and includes several bullet points summarizing Trump’s claims and whether they hold any merit.
Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, released a statement Tuesday evening accusing “Silicon Valley” of pulling “out all the stops to obstruct and interfere” with Trump “getting his message through to voters.”
Contrary to Trump’s claims, voter fraud – and especially fraudulent use of absentee ballots – is exceedingly rare.
Yet the president has repeatedly railed against absentee voting and falsely claimed it results in widespread voter fraud, even as he and his own family members have voted by mail.
He claimed during the 2016 election – when he was still trailing then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by several points and appeared positioned to lose the race – that there would be widespread voter fraud on Election Day.
After Trump won the election but lost the popular vote to Clinton, he claimed without evidence that three million to five million people in California had voted illegally, tipping the popular vote in Clinton’s favor.
Last week, he went on another crusade against absentee voting and vote-by-mail, threatening to withhold funding from Michigan and Nevada, both of whom have taken steps to make it easier for their constituents to receive their ballots in the mail.
In one tweet, he falsely said Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, was illegally sending every registered voter an absentee ballot.
He later deleted the tweet after observers pointed out that the state had mailed ballot applications, not ballots themselves, to residents. But Trump then doubled down and claimed, without evidence, that even sending absentee-ballot requests was illegal.
In another tweet, he accused Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske of sending “illegal vote by mail ballots” and “cheating” by mailing every registered voter a ballot for the state’s primary elections next month.
Benson told Insider in an interview that Michigan voters approved an amendment to the state’s constitution in 2018 allowing absentee voting. And Cegavske’s office told Insider in a statement that Cegavske “lawfully declared the 2020 primary election as a mail-in election.”
Grace Panetta contributed reporting.