Twitter is bringing back labels for US election candidates

For the 2018 midterm elections, Twitter introduced labels that appeared on US election candidates’ profiles and tweets in order to identify the office they were running for. The company announced today that it will be applying similar labels to candidates’ profiles and tweets for the 2020 US elections.

In theory, when you see the special label on a candidate’s profile or attached to their tweet, you can assume that those posts are genuinely from that person (or their team). The labels should also help you distinguish the real profiles of candidates from legit-looking impersonators who may pop up closer to the 2020 elections.

Twitter says that, as it did for the 2018 midterm, it will add the labels to candidates running for the US House of Representatives, US Senate, or for a state governorship, as long as they’ve qualified for the general election ballot. Here’s what those labels will look like:

Since individual states have different caucus and election dates, Twitter says the election labels will appear on a rolling basis as candidates qualify for the ballot. In addition, starting this week, the company says it will start verifying candidates who qualify for US primary races, so you might see more blue checkmarks attached to some candidates’ profiles soon.

Twitter says it’s again partnering with the election nonprofit Ballotpedia to help identify the accounts of candidates that qualify for the election labels.