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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

With 58,000 followers, even if every one of them believed him, it wouldn’t change the fact that the Electoral College votes would go for a Dem, given that this is NY. The press is always telling us there isn’t enough fraud to change the outcome. Couldn’t be truer in this case.


41 posted on 10/18/2023 12:07:28 PM PDT by Twotone
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To: nickcarraway
The American Communist party now in the WH is genius at developing and implementing intimidation strategies...

To get along, one just needs to:
Bow down!... Obey!... Snitch!...

42 posted on 10/18/2023 12:07:32 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is the next Sam Adams when we so desperately need him)
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To: Major Matt Mason

Peoples’ Republic of New York. Filthy communists.


43 posted on 10/18/2023 12:09:28 PM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: nickcarraway

Anyone stupid enough to believe that has no business voting anyway…


44 posted on 10/18/2023 12:09:48 PM PDT by gov_bean_ counter (Eccl 10:2 - The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left )
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To: Responsibility2nd

Zero.


45 posted on 10/18/2023 12:16:30 PM PDT by vivenne (⁹)
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To: nickcarraway

Was there even a single victim that tried to vote this way? If not, how does anyone have standing?

Oh wait, that is just used to keep the Right wing from suing for election fraud.


46 posted on 10/18/2023 12:17:36 PM PDT by for-q-clinton (Cancel Culture IS fascism...Let's start calling it that!)
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To: nickcarraway

It’s now a crime to make fun of morons.


47 posted on 10/18/2023 12:19:42 PM PDT by rfp1234 (E Porcibus Unum )
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To: Dead Corpse
The words are there... But if no one follows them... Does it matter?

The SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND is there. That's what this fight is all about. WE the PEOPLE MUST restore and reinstate the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended as the Supreme Law of the Land against the tyranny and totalitarianism of the feds.

The good fight of faith and freedom. Many have died for freedom. Freedom from unjust and tyrannical government is worth dying for IMO.

48 posted on 10/18/2023 12:26:47 PM 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: 1Old Pro
Hollywood actor Wendell Pierce (from Jack Ryan series) didn't get in any trouble for this, which may have cost the GOP 2 senators in 2020:


49 posted on 10/18/2023 12:33:38 PM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Re-imagine the media!)
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To: Jim W N

We’re in the minority... Most want their “bread and circus’” and plenty in power are eager to give it to them and damn the consequences.

We the People need to start decorating lamp posts with communists again or there will be nothing left to save of our Nation.

If you think one more op-ed, court case, or voting cycle will fix what ails us... you are PART OF THE PROBLEM.


50 posted on 10/18/2023 12:34:21 PM PDT by Dead Corpse (A Psalm in napalm...)
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To: nickcarraway

The democrats spend their lives misleading people.


51 posted on 10/18/2023 12:38:49 PM PDT by Revel
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To: nickcarraway

No crime committed. Another prime example of the politicization of the justice system. Outrageous.


52 posted on 10/18/2023 12:42:57 PM PDT by kabar
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To: ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas

Yep, they call it a two tiered justice system.


53 posted on 10/18/2023 12:43:59 PM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: nickcarraway

More tyranny-

“Douglass Mackey was just found guilty of a federal crime he was charged with by the DOJ for tweeting the meme on the left during the 2016 election.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1641907970547097603

The lady on the right has never been arrested for her tweet that also came during the 2016 election.”

The lady on the right is now in office, despite doing the exact same thing.


54 posted on 10/18/2023 12:44:25 PM PDT by Freest Republican (This space for rent)
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To: nickcarraway
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.

Ya think? 🙄 SMH.

55 posted on 10/18/2023 12:47:06 PM PDT by Pajamajan (Pray for our nation. Never be slave in a new Socialist America )
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To: nickcarraway

I laughed when I read it back then... does that make me an accessory?


56 posted on 10/18/2023 12:50:17 PM PDT by BuchananBrigadeTrumpFan (If in doubt, it's probably sarcasm)
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To: BigFreakinToad

The most effective weapon against tryanny is mockery. That’s why tyrants go after comedians first.

The best response is to spread the same meme endlessly.


57 posted on 10/18/2023 1:10:00 PM PDT by MeganC (There is nothing feminine about feminism. )
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To: nickcarraway

But not for misspelling words. You get ten to fifteen for spelling “there” as “their”.


58 posted on 10/18/2023 1:12:32 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Every Goliath has his David. Child in need of a CGM system. https://gofund.me/6452dbf1. )
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To: nickcarraway

He deprived people of the RIGHT to vote by making fun of their stupidity? Rubes will be rubes. They have the right to vote, if they can figure out where and when and how to do so. If they’re taken in by an obvious troll like this, maybe it’s better that they don’t vote.


59 posted on 10/18/2023 1:14:35 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (Every Goliath has his David. Child in need of a CGM system. https://gofund.me/6452dbf1. )
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To: Dead Corpse

Nobody said it was a quick fix. I always say it’s a difficult but worthwhile road and, like our Founders, we’ll need the help of the Divine Providence of God Almighty to restore our Free Constitutional Republic.

If you’ve already given up, then YOU are part of the problem/.


60 posted on 10/18/2023 1:21:41 PM 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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