Conservatives spread false claims on Twitter about electoral fraud as Iowans prepare to caucus

[SunSeeker]

The Iowa Democratic Party, in partnership with national Democratic officials, has labored to make the caucuses more transparent and to fend off the sort of confusion and conspiracy theories that marred the process in 2016. The Democratic National Committee has its own unit tracking viral disinformation and flagging falsehoods to campaigns, as well as to technology companies that have pledged to clean up their platforms after they were enlisted by Russian actors to boost Donald Trump in his campaign against Hillary Clinton.

But their efforts falter in the face of falsehoods pushed by users with massive online audiences, which social media platforms often refuse to remove, arguing they should not serve as the Web’s arbiters of truth. On Monday, Twitter affirmed its mostly hands-off approach, maintaining the false claims about Iowa’s voter rolls did not qualify as a form of voter suppression.

“The tweet you referenced is not in violation of our election integrity policy as it does not suppress voter turnout or mislead people about when, where, or how to vote," said spokeswoman Katie Rosborough.

Tom Fitton, the president of the conservative activist group Judicial Watch, wrote Sunday morning that “eight Iowa counties have more voter registrations than citizens old enough to register." That notion, based on a Judicial Watch report purporting to find similar irregularities in hundreds of counties across the country, is false, according to state officials and a Washington Post review of the most up-to-date data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/03/conservatives-push-false-claims-voter-fraud-twitter-iowans-prepare-caucus/?itid=hp_hp-bignews3_voter-fraud-155pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

[gratuitous]

1. Doesn't matter if the claims are false

The claims just have to get out there. By the time they're debunked, the narrative is set, and with the conniving amplification from Fox, the public's mind is convinced that something fraudulent has just gone on.

Every election day, rumors fly about buses tooling around various locales where everyone piles off at a polling place, casts ballots, then hops back on to do it again at another polling place. It's preposterous, but the story circulates anyway. It gets debunked somewhere down the line by reputable news outlets, but it seeps along just below the surface until the next election day, where it springs up fully formed like Athena from Zeus' head. By that time, the media have forgotten all about the same story that breathlessly circulated two or four years ago, and they report it straight, as if it was news.

[dustyscamp]

2. Republicans can never play fair

[2naSalit]

3. Just like demanding an announcement of investigations... nt

[SunSeeker]

5. Yup. Right wingers fuck with our elections and lie because it's the only way they can win. nt

[in2herbs]

4. Joe still thinks he can work with these guys??? nt

[SharonClark]

6. Judicial Watch has said this before about Iowa

and the repug Iowa SOS had to call it out because he oversees elections.

[IronLionZion]

7. Voters don't unregister when they die or move

They only get unregistered if they look black or brown.

I hate these conservative liars. They are still promoting the lie that if there are more registered voters than current voting age adults, then there must be fraud.