Following his suggestion that North Carolina voters should try to cast their ballots twice—which is very much illegal—Trump tried to clarify himself in a string of Thursday tweets that only reiterated the bonkers suggestion. On Wednesday, Trump told voters to submit a mail-in ballot then also vote in-person to test whether the system is prone to fraud. On Thursday, he tweaked the message slightly. In order to “MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE COUNTS,” Trump told voters to sign and mail in a ballot early, then also line up in-person at a local polling place to check that the mail ballot has been tabulated. “If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly. If it has not been Counted, VOTE (which is a citizen’s right to do),” he tweeted. (North Carolina has a web search feature so voters can check whether their ballot has been received.)
Twitter later slapped warning labels on the posts, suggesting the messages violated a policy against advocating illegal election activity. Facebook had earlier said it would remove videos of Trump encouraging voting twice because it “violates our policies prohibiting voter fraud.” North Carolina election officials were also forced to issue a memo on Thursday reminding voters that intentional double voting is illegal.
