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Twitter Troll Slapped With Prison Sentence Over Misleading Election Memes
Daily Calller ^

Posted on 10/18/2023 11:26:15 AM PDT by nickcarraway

Douglass Mackey, who ran a Twitter account with over 58,000 followers, was sentenced to seven months in prison Wednesday for a meme he shared on social media during the 2016 election.

Mackey was convicted by a jury in March of conspiring to deprive others of their right to vote, which carried a potential sentence of up to 10 years. The meme that led to his conviction was a fake flier encouraging Clinton supporters to vote from home via text message.

“Avoid the line. Vote from home,” it stated. “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925. Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.”

Small text at the bottom of the flier notes that voting by text is “not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii.” (RELATED: Anti-Hillary Election ‘Meme’ Case Could Open The Floodgates To More Gov’t Censorship, Legal Experts Warn)

Prosecutors said that Mackey also belonged to private Twitter direct-message groups where he “coordinated” dissemination of misinformation “intended variously to provoke, mislead, and, in some cases, deceive voters in the 2016 presidential election” with others, according to the sentencing memo.

“Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice in the 2016 Presidential Election,” United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said after Mackey’s conviction in March. “Today’s verdict proves that the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality and flatly rejects his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote.”

First Amendment experts raised concerns earlier this year that the law used to convict Mackey could also be used to target any allegedly false statements about political or election related issues.

“It criminalizes conspiring to ‘injure’ or ‘oppress’ someone in the exercise of any constitutional right,” Aaron Terr, director of Public Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in April. “If that vague language covers speech that deceives people into voting improperly, it raises the troubling possibility of the government also applying it to allegedly false statements about political issues or candidates that discourage people from voting, not just misrepresentations about the logistics of exercising the franchise.”


TOPICS: Breaking News; Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
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To: nickcarraway

This charge and sentence looks prima facia unconstitutional.


21 posted on 10/18/2023 11:40:38 AM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: nickcarraway
> Isn't their wide latitude for humor and parody? <

I read somewhere else that what got this guy in trouble was his use of Hillary’s web address and her campaign symbol (the H at the bottom right).


22 posted on 10/18/2023 11:41:57 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: nickcarraway; All

“Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice in the 2016 Presidential Election,” United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York...”


Mackey lived in Florida but he was charged in Brooklyn.

We need our Own Homeland !


23 posted on 10/18/2023 11:42:03 AM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
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To: Jim W N

In a functional and Constitutionally limited Republic with an equitable Justice system predicated upon natural law?

Correct.

We no longer have a system anywhere near that. Lysander Spooner was warning of this over a hundred years ago and for all that time... our cheese has slid slowly off the cracker.

... and here we are.


24 posted on 10/18/2023 11:42:19 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (A Psalm in napalm...)
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To: nickcarraway

Obviously this will be appealed. This is blatantly unconstitutional.


25 posted on 10/18/2023 11:43:12 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: nickcarraway

So, in other words....Democrat voters are too stupid to know when Election Day is.


26 posted on 10/18/2023 11:44:42 AM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear ("Equity" = "All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.")
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To: Leaning Right

but there’s a yuck


27 posted on 10/18/2023 11:44:49 AM PDT by butlerweave
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To: nickcarraway

He never stated that the vote would be counted in the election. If someone is that stupid, its better that their vote isn’t counted.


28 posted on 10/18/2023 11:46:37 AM PDT by Dr. Franklin ("A republic, if you can keep it." )
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To: Leaning Right

Re: 22 - the problem it seems to me is that it does not indicate it was a parody.


29 posted on 10/18/2023 11:47:17 AM PDT by Fury
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To: Dead Corpse

The system - a valid and enforceable Constitution - is there.

The people are not.


30 posted on 10/18/2023 11:48:35 AM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: workerbee
Eastern District of New York

Never Trumpers extraordinaire. Other than the courts in DC, probably the most corrupt of the Fedzilla courts.

31 posted on 10/18/2023 11:49:16 AM PDT by Major Matt Mason (To solve the Democrat problem, the RINO problem must first be solved.)
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To: Jim W N

The words are there... But if no one follows them... Does it matter?

Dems and GOP both are pretty much off the chain and doing whatever the hell they please.

How do you cage the tiger again once it has figured out your lock is made of nothing but paper?


32 posted on 10/18/2023 11:50:31 AM PDT by Dead Corpse (A Psalm in napalm...)
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To: READINABLUESTATE
eff this skeezy banana republic that we live in.


33 posted on 10/18/2023 11:51:52 AM PDT by kiryandil (China Joe and Paycheck Hunter - the Chink in America's defenses)
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To: All

Entries for case:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59249282/united-states-v-mackey/

A paper from 1995 about using 18 USC 241 regarding attempting to supress voting rights:

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1193&context=uclf


34 posted on 10/18/2023 11:53:34 AM PDT by Fury
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To: nickcarraway

If this situation was geared against Republican voters you know there would be NO charges. The weaponized DOJ continues its reign of terror against Republicans.


35 posted on 10/18/2023 11:56:51 AM PDT by kenmcg (ti hi o)
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To: nickcarraway

TRUTH: Jack Poso @ Posobiec
Doug Mackey made a meme called DraftOurDaughters to warn us that the world would be at war with Democrats in power

Now they’re throwing him in jail

https://rumble.com/v3q5tn4-human-events-with-jack-posobiec-ep.-585.html


36 posted on 10/18/2023 11:57:01 AM PDT by Fairhairedboy (MAGA)
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To: Dead Corpse

Also numerous cases of libs making videos wearing MAGA hats telling Trump votes the wrong voting days, etc.


37 posted on 10/18/2023 11:57:52 AM PDT by matt04 ( )
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To: j.havenfarm

Denied free speech due to a fairly common theme in humor.


38 posted on 10/18/2023 12:02:37 PM PDT by xzins (Retired US Army chaplain. Support our troops by praying for their victory. )
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To: cgbg

“The prosecutors should be made to prove the tweet successfully deceived actual humans in large enough numbers to matter.”

Should we (the public) learn to take care of ourselves or should government protect us by censorship.

I don’t have the answer except to say I would like for us to be “smart” rather than led. Maybe my frequently used quotation from Mother Theresa applies here: Wisdom is acquired by suffering.

The wisdom might be worth the suffering. Or maybe it’s that suffering today prevents greater future suffering.


39 posted on 10/18/2023 12:04:20 PM PDT by cymbeline
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To: nickcarraway

He’s trying to raise money through givesendgo.com.
People stupid enough to believe we now vote thru
texting? It’s obvious satire.

Who’s next, Babylon Bee?


40 posted on 10/18/2023 12:06:30 PM PDT by psjones (u)
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