Trump says children can tamper with mail-in voting ballots, accuses Twitter of lacking neutrality
President Donald Trump is terribly upset with the idea of holding mail-in voting as an electoral norm in the times of coronavirus suspecting that it would lead to large-scale corruption and impact the presidential election of November 3. The matter turned worse after he posted his suspicion on Twitter with the social media platform asking readers to fact-check his claims on the issue. The president consequently accused Twitter of interfering in the presidential election and stifling free speech. He even threatened to take action by either regulating or even shutting down social media platforms that he accused of unfairly treating conservative voices.
On Thursday, May 28, the Republican leader signed an executive order at the Oval Office aimed at removing some of the legal protections that the social media platforms get. And as he did it, he floated more conspiracy theories to back his claim on mail-in voting. According to Trump, when states send out ballots to all registered voters, children could raid mailboxes for ballots to be signed illegally and submitted.
Trump said: “Kids go and raid the mailboxes and hand to people signing the ballots down the street, which is happening, they grab the ballots. You don't think that happens? You don’t think they rip them out of mailboxes?” He said those trying to do a voting fraud can also print ballots.
“They can even print ballots. They get the same paper, same machine, nothing is special. They get the same paper, the same machine, they print ballots,” he added. “You have tremendous potential for fraud and abuse.”
There has been very less factual support for Trump’s claims. While Twitter said while ‘blue-flagging’ Trump’s tweets on mail-in voting that his claims were unsubstantiated by experts from frontline media houses like CNN, Washington Post and others, the conservative Heritage Foundation has shown through data preserved over the last four years that there have been only 1,285 instances where voter fraud could be proved. The number is too little when compared against the fact that 130 million Americans cast votes in the 2016 election.
Trump, so far, has produced little facts to back his claims. One reporter told him on Thursday that his tweet about absentee voting in California, where the president accused Governor Gavin Newsom of sending mail-in ballots to everyone in the state, was incorrect. Newsom sent ballots to the registered voters and Trump’s tweet targeting the Democratic governor was questioned by Twitter. “Oh really?” the president asked in response.
'Twitter not a neutral platform'
Trump continued with his tirade against Twitter on Thursday by accusing the microblogging site of acting like an “editor with a point of view” and not a “neutral platform” by fact-checking him. He also slammed its ‘Site Integrity’ head Yoel Roth, accusing him of ‘fraud’ for the fact check. Roth came under attack from the Trump camp recently after a few of his old Twitter posts surfaced that showed him being critical of Trump and his administration. Twitter, however, defended Roth saying he was not involved in the matter.
On the occasion, Trump was also asked whether he wanted to get rid of Twitter. To that, he replied: “If it was legal, if it was able to be legally shut down, I would.” Trump has slammed Twitter and other social media platforms earlier as well even though he heavily relies on tweets to act as a bridge between him and his supporters because he shares a sour relation with the mainstream media.
“We're here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers it has faced in American history, frankly, and you know what's going on as well as anybody. It's not good,” Trump said after signing the order — an event that came just days after Twitter asked readers to fact-check his tweets, for the first time.
The ‘fact-check’ move by Twitter came on the heels of the criticism it faced for refusing to remove some of the president’s controversial posts targeting former Congressman Joe Scarborough over the death of one of his female staff members in 2001. The widower of the late staffer, Lori Klausutis, appealed to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to remove the remarks but the social media platform refused to do it even as it sympathized with the aggrieved family.