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Remember how back in 2016, there was a funny meme going around about how you could text to vote for Hillary? A man named Douglass Mackey was behind that, who has been found guilty of election interference by a jury in New York. The argument goes that this effectively deleted a bunch of votes that should have gone to Clinton. Okay, so how many?
...I'm not an expert on the 2020 allegations of election interference, but come on now, I'm pretty sure those allegations were more than just thousands of votes. And they were dismissed on account of not likely having affected the election. Regardless, the meme was clearly a joke; that 4,900 number seems absolutely paltry and criminally charging him is making a mountain out of an anthill.
More importantly, it's not hard to interpret this in the light of Trump's recent indictment for a matter that also transpired in 2016. Now, I can understand the argument that the reason they didn't try to charge him then was because he was the president, and it would be pretty hard to try to bring charges against the president while he's in office, therefore they waited until he was out. Or, they didn't know that he paid off the porn star until recently. But this? Douglass's tweet was very public and they could've easily charged him all the way back in 2016 if they wanted to. Why are they doing it now?
That actually is not the argument, since he was convicted of conspiracy.
The case is case no 21-CR-80 (NGG). Which means it was filed in 2021. Federal criminal prosecutions are prosecuted by the US Attorney for the district. US Attorneys are appointed by the President and are replaced when a new President takes office. Is it a surprise that the Trump-appointed US Attorney did not prosecute a crime intended to help Trump win the election?
The jury, which heard the actual evidence, apparently found to the contrary; specifically, it found that he intended to deprive people of the right to vote. Has it occurred to you that there might have been more evidence presented than just the memes? Such as group chat logs where participants "discussed how to make the text-by-vote images look convincing" and testimony from one of the co-conspirators?
Why does that matter? People are convicted of attempts to commit crime all the time, after all, when the actual harm done is zero. And a bank robbery that nets only $4900 is even more paltry; should we give the robber a pass? As the theme song to Baretta said, "don't do the crime if you can't do the time."
You think a bank robber stealing money is a crime "more paltry" than posting text-to-vote election memes? This is disqualifying for your moral judgment.
Right, when the government arrests you for sedition, they're not violating your 1A rights, because they technically charged you with sedition, not speech.
Yes, it is paltry in the exact sense that OP used the term paltry: In the context of the extent of harm caused. There were something like 140 million votes cast for President in 2016. In contrast, total cash deposits in the banking system totals hundreds of billions of dollars, if not more. But if you want to compare harms, consider this: If my vote is annulled in some manner, that is a harm that can never be remedied, even if the perpetrator is caught. That is not the case re theft of my bank deposit.
Edit: But to be clear, the point is that if the paltriness is not a reason to refrain from prosecuting a bank robber, why should it be a reason to refrain from prosecuting this guy?
What does this have to do with the issue? OP made a claim about the legal basis for the conviction, and I simply pointed out that the amount of harm caused was not an element of the crime, and hence is irrelevant to the legal basis of the conviction. Whether the actions in question were protected by the First Amendment is a completely different issue, but is similar in this respect: The amount of harm caused is also irrelevant to whether his actions constituted protected speech.
"The legal basis" and "the crime" are completely made-up. These theories didn't exist before. If the government passes a law declaring pro-China sentiment equivalent to treason, I'm not going to take at face-value theories about this isn't chilling because "the First Amendment is a completely different issue". This is a recipe for negating the First Amendment: your speech isn't protected, because it {caused harm}.
Ricky's memes did not annul any votes and could not have annulled any votes.
No, they are neither new or made up. Laws re interfering with voting have been on the books forever. This guy just happens to have come up with a new way to violate the law.
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