Twitter Plays Into Trump’s Hands

Where would President Trump be if his critics didn’t so often help him? The latest case is Twitter’s attempt Tuesday for the first time to fact-check Mr. Trump’s tweet logorrhea. He wrote that mail-in voting this fall would be “substantially fraudulent,” saying that California is sending ballots to anyone living in the state, “no matter who they are or how they got there.”

Those tweets are now appended with a hazard symbol urging users to get the, er, truth according to some anonymous Twitter editor. “Fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud,” Twitter says. Mr. Trump’s statement about California is false, it adds, since “only registered voters will receive ballots.” Also: “Five states already vote entirely by mail and all states offer some form of mail-in absentee voting.”

On California, Twitter is right that Mr. Trump is wrong. But on voter fraud, it’s complicated. There isn’t evidence of widespread fraud in mail voting. That doesn’t mean there’s no evidence. Last year a close House election in North Carolina was thrown out because of accusations that a Republican operative illegally collected absentee ballots, including incomplete ballots that his workers allegedly filled in. Investigators then also charged him with doing similar funny business in 2016.