Guilty verdict for pro-Trump troll who tried to trick voters for casting Hillary Clinton ballots in 2016

NY Daily News ^ | March 31.2023 | Ellen Moynihan and John Annese

[Yo-Yo]

A federal jury on Friday convicted pro-Trump troll Douglass Mackey of plotting to trick voters out of casting a ballot during the 2016 presidential election.

The case, which sought to address if any of the toxic stew of Internet disinformation during the 2016 election rose to the level of a crime, has been closely watched by both anti-extremist groups and right-wing politicians and pundits.

Mackey, 33, of West Palm Beach, Fla., who gained fame on the Internet as the Twitter user “Ricky Vaughn,” posted two images made to look like fake Hillary Clinton ads telling people they could vote by text instead of in-person.

Federal prosecutors called the images part of a plot to disenfranchise Black and women voters, but Mackey insisted that he was simply “s--tposting” and sharing ridiculous memes.

[markman46]

Yes I know that, my question is by prosecuted in NYc?

[markman46]

Oh so a few Karen’s complained stop the mean man..

[griswold3]

Passed the point of No Return.
No one will Like what comes next.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

It is also a useful lesson on who will be allowed to speak going forward. As it turns out, a woman called Kristina Wong posted almost an identical meme that year in the 2016 election but unlike Doug Mackey, Wong voted for Hillary Clinton,” Carlson said. “‘Hey Trump supporters,’ she wrote, ‘skip poll lines and text in your vote.’ Same crime, but the Department of Justice under Joe Biden has shown no interest in prosecuting Kristina Wong. Do you see how this works? Have you internalized our new partisan legal standards? That would be the point of the exercise. They want you to know the rules.

[curious7]

Ripe for an appeal. Unequal prosecution and first amendment violation. Get it overturned then sue for title 18 section 242 (and 241 conspiracy to commit same) violation. Slam them back.

[TBP]

So if posting memes is a crime now, are we going to punish this one?

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Thanks. Mackey was, and Trump will be, indicted in NYC. How many others that the leftist aristocracy hates will be victims? And it's not just NYC. If we anger our rulers, it is almost certain that they can try us in in big cities and put us away. We are on the path to a banana republic unless we find an way to win elections.

Did you notice the Trump indictment leak happened after the payments-from-China-story broke?

[Chode]

wonder if his lawyer knew about that...

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Don’t know, but juries can be weird. The jury was deadlocked, but the judge sent them bank, and they convicted.

[lepton]

What *may* have crossed the line was putting at the bottom of the memes “Must be 18 or older to vote. One vote per person. Must be a legal citizen of the United States. Voting by text not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii. Paid for by Hillary for President 2016.”

---

Alaska and Hawaii? Two of the places where there is actually a high chance of knowing where you are texting from?

How is this texting to vote supposed to work? Can you text once per phone number?

This is just silliness.

[lepton]

The satire is obvious and protected speech.

---

And reflective of other jokes going back decades.

[newzjunkey]

Same idea yes but she didn’t give specifics on “how to vote” by text. It’s a slippery slope. The Alaska and Hawaii thing is definitely a tip off in his meme though. You would think the MAGA hat profile pic would be enough as well.

[TBP]

He was trolling. That is not a crime. Everyone in volved in the case knows that.

[TBP]

Because black and women voters are apparently effing morons?

Isn't that what woke, liberal, antiracist teaching says? They claim those people cannot make it in society, so I guess they must believe they're morons.

[TBP]

This is the only way they can get all those Florida transplants back to New York.

[TBP]

So are Black women supposed to be that stupid?

Compassionate, antiracist liberals believe they are. In LibWorld, the answer is a resounding "Yes!"

[TBP]

Th theory is that the misdemeanor was to support another crime, which elevates it to felony status.

[TBP]

DemoKKKrats have been a ‘toxic stew’ for 80 years.

Wrong. DemoKKKrats have been a ‘toxic stew’ for 200 years.

[TBP]

Remember when Democrats ran State Comptroller Carl McCall (a black man) out of the gubernatorial race in New York for Cuomo and Rush tried to prop up McCall to highlight the Democrats’ institutional racism? That would probably be illegal too.

[TBP]

That’s exactly what they’re saying. This prosecution reveals not criminality, but the racist misogyny of the DemoKKKrats.