The Donald Trump vs mail-in ballots fight saw some reinforcement on the latter side, when social media platforms Twitter and Facebook foiled Donald Trump’s comments on said platforms, which encouraged voters to vote twice in the upcoming elections. Twitter cited “violation of Twitter rules about civic and election integrity”.
Trump had tweeted asking voters to send in their mail-in votes as early as possible to make sure their vote is ‘counted’. He then, in a continuing tweet, said that voters should go to their polling centers on the election day and check if their mail-in votes have been counted and if not then they should vote again there, at the polling center.
The tweets are still visible but Twitter has tagged labels to it reading, “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.
Similar comments were posted on Donald Trump’s Facebook page, and thus, the social media giant took a similar action, adding a fact checking label to the post. The label states “Voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the US and the same is predicted this year”, sourcing Bipartisan Policy center. This might be the first big action taken under Facebook’s recently announced steps to tackle spread of misinformation during the elections by politicians. Facebook will also take down videos of Trump speaking about voting twice unless it is being shared to “correct the record”.
Trump had also recently made similar comments on a local television in North Carolina, urging its citizens to vote first using the mail-in system and then check that vote by going to the polling center and voting again. If they are not able to vote again, it means the mail-in was counted.
These scenes emerge amid the Republican party’s increasing distrust over the vote-by-mail system. Even though mail-in votes have been used in US elections for long now, Donald Trump is trying to cast a doubt in voters’ minds of its credibility with his recent actions.
