Twitter slaps another warning on Donald Trump’s tweets over double-voting advice

Twitter has again placed a warning label on one of President Donald Trump’s tweets, accusing him of illegally urging citizens to vote twice in the presidential election.

‘NORTH CAROLINA: To make sure your Ballot COUNTS, sign & send it in EARLY. When Polls open, go to your Polling Place to see if it was COUNTED,’ Trump wrote in his tweet on Saturday from the White House.

‘IF NOT, VOTE! Your signed Ballot will not count because your vote has been posted. Don’t let them illegally take your vote away from you!’

Twitter quickly hid the tweet behind a warning, explaining in a statement: ‘We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy, specifically for encouraging people to potentially vote twice.’  

‘Voting twice in North Carolina is illegal,’ Twitter continued in the statement. ‘To protect people on Twitter, we err on the side of limiting the circulation of Tweets which advise people to take actions which could be illegal in the context of voting or result in the invalidation of their votes.’ 

‘Per our policies, this Tweet will remain on the service given its relevance to the ongoing public conversation. Engagements with the Tweet will be limited. People will be able to Retweet with Comment, but not Like, Reply, or Retweet it,’ the company said. 

On a visit to North Carolina earlier this month, Trump first suggested that his supporters vote once by mail and a second time in person to test whether the system could weed out voter fraud. 

The executive director of North Carolina’s board of elections, Karen Brinson Bell, responded by warning that voting twice in the state is a felony, as is trying to induce someone to vote twice. 

Brinson Bell said the board ‘strongly discourages’ people from following the president’s guidance. ‘That is not necessary, and it would lead to longer lines and the possibility of spreading COVID-19,’ she said in a statement. 

Trump has repeated his urging several times, saying that he is not advising voting twice, but warning voters to go to the polls to make sure their mail-in ballot has been counted.

‘Send in your ballots, send them in strong … And you send them in, but you go to vote. If they haven´t counted it, you can vote,’ Trump said in a recent interview with WECT TV6 in Wilmington, North Carolina. 

But some election officials advise people against heading to the polls to check on their mail-in ballots and then attempting to cast another ballot if there isn’t full verification, saying it will cause unnecessary chaos, long waits and health dangers in the pandemic.

Contrary to what Trump suggests, information on whether a ballot has been counted is typically not available right away. 

In several states, absentee ballots aren’t even counted until after polls close. What can be checked is whether an absentee ballot has been received, and in some cases, whether it has passed a security review and will be submitted for counting.

Many states offer ways for voters to verify the status of their ballot online that provide information on when an absentee ballot request has been received, when a ballot has been sent, when the ballot has been received by a local election office and whether it has passed the security review and been accepted. 

These services are typically available on the website of the state election board or the secretary of state.

Voters in the few states that don´t provide this information online have the option to call their local election office.