Sen. Tom Cotton took a stab at Twitter's fact-checking policy, which for the first time on Tuesday slapped a label on two of President Trump's tweets warning about mail-in ballots.
".@Twitter is 'fact checking' the argument that mandatory vote-by-mail would be ripe for fraud," the Arkansas Republican tweeted on Wednesday. "It's absurd for twitter to exercise editorial control over a public policy argument. And like most smug liberals, they're wrong on the facts."
Cotton went on to list examples of issues resulting from absentee ballots, including thousands of ballots that were left undelivered in Wisconsin, a mail carrier in West Virginia being charged with attempted absentee ballot application fraud, and a homeless man with a criminal history being accused of voter fraud in Texas.
"Voting by mail is *already* a prime opportunity for criminals to try to rig elections," Cotton said. "There are countless examples. Imagine how much worse it would be if suddenly nationwide & mandatory?"
Twitter posted a fact-check alert on Trump's tweets bashing Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom's decision to issue an absentee ballot to every registered voter in the state to ensure voter safety and access amid the coronavirus pandemic. Clicking on the alert leads the user to fact-check performed by news organizations that say absentee ballots are unlikely to lead to voter fraud.
"There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent," Trump said in the tweets. "Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. 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!"
After Twitter slapped on the fact-check alert to his tweets, Trump accused Twitter of meddling in the 2020 election and threatened "big action" against the social media giant.
