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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   39812 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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4900 is not in any way a paltry number. One state had a gap of 2700 votes between winner and loser. People are convicted all the time for voter fraud (which, of course, is a different thing than what mackey did) involving a few votes. Of course, 4900 unique numbers might not mean 4900 people whose votes were prevented, who knows.

They could've easily charged Douglass all the way back in 2016 if they wanted to. Why are they doing it now?

Just combine your trump explanation with 'collecting evidence, preparing a case, bureaucracy, and procedures takes a while'? I don't know, but that is a lot simpler than 'it's coordinated with trump's indictment'. It's not even aimed at trump.

To the merits of the conviction - where should the line between 'joke' and 'interfering with an election' be? It's arguable that, if you make a concerted effort to mislead voters and do mislead a large number of voters, even if it's a "joke" you still committed the crime. Similarly, if you 'falsely advertise' a product as a joke, that should be first-amendment protected - but if people tricked by the 'joke' try to buy the fake product, and you accept their payments without delivering, that should be illegal. I'd guess that (not-lawyer-squishy-opinion), on the balance, this should be legal, but it's more reasonable to criminalize it than most other kinds of satirical speech, as the govt has an interest in elections being run fairly. It isn't really outrageous, signaling a crackdown on right-wing dissidents, or anything like that.

Eugene Volokh wrote a detailed article about the case, before Mackey was found guilty. My read is - there are arguments both ways on whether restricting that speech is, or should be, permitted by the First Amendment, but the particular statute used isn't a good fit.

In First Amendment cases, the court has asked not only whether the defendant’s speech is theoretically punishable—it has asked whether the particular law is narrowly tailored to punishing it, and whether it clearly enough defines what is punished. (This is done under the “overbreadth,” “strict scrutiny,” “intermediate scrutiny,” and “vagueness” doctrines.) Section 241 may be adequate for punishing nonspeech conduct, whether violence or vandalism or tying up phone lines, or for speech that falls within a recognized First Amendment exception (such as perjury). But if the federal government wants to punish speech about elections, even deliberately deceptive speech, it ought to use something clearer and narrower.

In the Tobin case, there was an appeal of a different charge: Tobin had also been convicted under a telephone harassment statute, which banned repeated calls made “with intent to harass.” But the appellate court reversed that, and added: “Despite the unattractive conduct, this [telephone harassment] statute is not a close fit for what Tobin did. If the government thinks this a recurring problem, it better seek an amendment [to the statute].” Those words ring true for the Mackey prosecution as well.

Of course, 4900 unique numbers might not mean 4900 people whose votes were prevented, who knows.

It used to be, in non-banana-republic countries, the prosecution had to prove such things. As far as I know, they didn't prove a single case of anyone being prevented from voting. Of course, now "it could happen, who knows" is proof enough to convict a person.

He was convicted of conspiracy, which does not require a completed crime, so they did not have to prove that anyone had their votes prevented.

That’s why there are a couple of levels of courts above that, and then the Supreme Court.

You forgot about "the process is the punishment" part. How much do you think preparing a case for Supreme Court costs? In case the Court wants to bother with it, which is not even guaranteed - so you could spend all this money to prepare the petition and then don't even get a hearing. Would the perspective of undergoing multi-year and ruinously expensive process deter you from criticizing certain politicians (remember, comrade: nobody ever gets prosecuted for memes about Trump!) or wouldn't it?

where should the line between 'joke' and 'interfering with an election' be? It's arguable that, if you make a concerted effort to mislead voters and do mislead a large number of voters, even if it's a "joke" you still committed the crime

Nowhere near this? It is a joke because of how incredibly stupid it is. Even if somehow, by a magic of fate 50% of potential Hillary voters fell for it, and she lost a 537-1 (DC) landslide it would still have been a joke. This does not interfere with the voting process in any way. If it does affect someone's vote, it is still a meta joke about that person's intelligence and fitness to vote.

DC has three electoral votes; in your hypothetical, it would be 535-3.

Agree. 4900 is more than i would have guessed for a seemingly harmless twitter joke...that is more than enough to move the needle for swing states. Had someone did this but targeting trump voters and had trump lost, we'd be hearing to no end by the same guys on Twitter about how it's not a joke and how it's evidence of fraud, and so on. One way around this is to charge him to set legal precedent , but sentence him lightly. To add, I personally don't think he should have been charged and someone who fall for such a joke is too ill-informed to have a say, but I can see the rationale for charging him. The 1st amendment protects a lot, but I can see a line being drawn if it involves elections. Let's assume someone like Nayib Bukele had charged some people for making a similar joke that interfered with his election. Would the same people supporting him now be defending those people for making a joke on the grounds of the 1st amendment? The failure of people to apply their principles evenly/consistently is one of the problems I have with online-right.

To add, I personally don't think he should have been charged and someone who fall for such a joke is too ill-informed to have a say, but I can see the rationale for charging him.

The justification is made-up. They aren't charging anyone else who posted text-to-vote memes. Next time, they'll invent new legal theories and government powers to arbitrarily charge someone else they don't like.

Had someone did this but targeting trump voters and had trump lost

Let's assume someone like Nayib Bukele had charged some people

The failure of people to apply their principles evenly/consistently is one of the problems I have with online-right.

"I made up some arguments in my head, and I don't like the answers I imagine you gave me. This is what I don't like about you."

4900 is more than i would have guessed for a seemingly harmless twitter joke...that is more than enough to move the needle for swing states.

There is also "no evidence" (using election fraud standards) that any of those people didn't vote because of texting that number. Even if they actually went around asking people for this criminal complaint, which is conveniently not allowed in most election fraud lawsuits, that would still only be mild evidence, because probably most of the people who say yes wouldn't have voted in reality. The dimpled chads had a better argument. Kari Lake has a better argument. This argument is below laugh worthy.

That's BS - I have seen dozens of such jokes, from both sides, close to every election previously. And nobody ever on the Trump side complained about it as an evidence of fraud. While we are seeing here that the Biden side is not just complaining - but prosecuting a person for it. But still somehow it's Trump's fault, amazingly.

This wasn't just a single casual joke!

Excerpts from the complaint, which somehow blocks copying

[...] Within minutes, members of the Madman Group discussed ways to make the Deceptive Image more effective. One member of the group responded, "Don't post it yet though, a week or less before the election. I'm making a version myself." Co-Conspirator 4 responded, "make sure to use the latest color schemes they have.

Three minutes later, a participant in the Madman Group responded, "Dopey shitlibs will fall for it too."

Co-Conspirator 2 stated "here's what I worried about [I, people on[Candidate 2's] side thinking this is legit and they stay home. I'm plotting, will have something soon.» Another member responded, "[Co-Conspirator 2], what about if we say something about its too late b/c we didn't register for it [and] we'll have to do it next election or some shit." Co-Conspirator 2 responded, "Yep, I think so."

This does seem to show intent to actually influence voting, as opposed to just laughing. That said, 'actually influencing the vote' is pretty funny. And the sort of person who'd fall for such a dumb trick probably isn't someone whose political opinions, and thus vote, are of particular value anyway.

article with example images and some context

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