Twitter immediately flags new Trump tweet that baselessly claims election fraud

‘This claim about election fraud is disputed,’ social media platform says

Twitter immediately flagged one of Donald Trump’s latest tweets that doubles down — once again — on his campaign’s baseless assertions of election fraud.

“This claim about election fraud is disputed,” the social media platform bolted in blue lettering underneath the president’s tweet.

“THE OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO THE COUNTING ROOMS. I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES. BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE. NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE,” Mr Trump wrote on Saturday, hours after the Associated Press called the US presidential election for his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.

To be explicitly clear, Mr Trump’s all-caps claims about observers not being allowed watch ballots being counted are simply not true.

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From Pennsylvania to Nevada to Arizona, certified poll watchers from both parties have been allowed to observe state and county election officials processing ballots and tallying vote totals all week.

Mr Trump then misleadingly insinuated that mail-in ballots were rife with fraud because some states sent ballots to all registered voters.

“MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS WERE SENT TO PEOPLE WHO NEVER ASKED FOR THEM!” the president wrote in his tweet.

The only mostly accurate element of the president’s tweet is that he has won 71m nationwide popular votes. That tally actually only stood at 70,636,664 by the time Mr Trump published his tweet, but it is not uncommon for politicians to round up in their messaging.

But Mr Biden has won more than 74m popular votes, the most of any presidential candidate in history, even with thousands — possibly millions — of more ballots left to count.

The Associated Press projected Mr Biden would win the 2020 election mid-day on Saturday after calling Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes in his favour. That put the Democratic former vice president over the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency. He is expected to carry some other outstanding swing states such as Georgia.

By Friday, an analysis from The Independent found that of the 46 tweets Mr Trump has published since Election Day, 37 per cent have been flagged by Twitter for containing false, misleading, or disputed information.

For months, Mr Trump has attacked the integrity of the US elections, especially mail-in absentee ballots. This week, he has repeatedly made the unsubstantiated claim that election officials are counting illegal ballots, that legal observers have not been permitted to watch the ballot count, and many ballots in his favour are missing.

Despite filing several lawsuits in key swing states, the president’s lawyers have failed to provide evidence for such claims.