During the 2016 presidential election, a jokester went online and told Democrats to “Save Time, Avoid the Line” and vote online.
WND reported the joke was by Douglass Mackey, who for the joke was convicted in New York state of “election interference.”
Ep. 38 The First Amendment is done. Douglass Mackey is about to go to prison for mocking Hillary Clinton on the internet. We talked to him right before his sentencing. Remember as you watch that this could be you.
TIMESTAMPS:
(3:12) The Hillary Clinton meme
(4:20) Hillary’s… pic.twitter.com/MLwz2SboGr— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) November 9, 2023
But he appealed to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the decision, arguing that if the government’s case against him stands, the results necessarily would criminalize not just political misinformation and satire, but also “lies about also whether and for whom to vote. Such a sprawling political speech code is in the teeth of every applicable canon for reading criminal laws, and grossly offends the First Amendment.”
Now a report in the Washington Examiner reveals his conviction has been overturned.
“A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered a lower court to enter a judgment of acquittal after finding that trial evidence brought by Biden-era federal prosecutors failed to prove Mackey conspired with others to influence the election at the time,” the report said.
“The government was obligated to show that Mackey knowingly entered into an agreement with other people to pursue that objective,” Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston wrote in the unanimous opinion, which was joined by Judges Reena Raggi and Beth Robinson. “This the government failed to do.”
There were claims Mackey tricked some 5,000 people into voting by text or social media, even though there was no process to accommodate those attempts.
Prosecutors claimed that there were social media platform groups discussing interfering with voting rights, but they could not show Mackey ever engaged with those.
“The government failed to offer sufficient evidence that Mackey even viewed—let alone participated in any of these exchanges,” the opinion said. “And in the absence of such evidence, the government’s remaining circumstantial evidence cannot alone establish Mackey’s knowing agreement.”
WND also reported that a “progressive activist told Trump supporters to vote by text, but she was not prosecuted.
Man convicted for joking about Hillary takes on Biden regime