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Comment by ericbarrett | Hacker News Reader

'On or about and before Election Day 2016, at least 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted “Hillary” or some derivative to the 59925 text number, which had been used in multiple deceptive campaign images tweeted by Mackey and his co-conspirators.'

- from the DOJ press release

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Did DOJ produce anyone that was harmed by this meme? How many of the 4,900 "unique" numbers were other twitter followers who were in on the gag or recognized it for the obvious joke that it is?

No. There isn't a single person who was disenfranchised by this internet meme.

Dont you think a large number of those were people in on the joke, and texted as a way of upvoting? Or people who knew they weren't eligible to vote (too young, not registered, not a citizen) who thought maybe a text vote would allow them to be counted without the verification normally needed? The idea that Hillary Clinton lost 4900 legitimate votes is not even alleged, let alone proven.

Doesn't mean a single one believed they were voting and skipped the polls due to this.

This is a bizzare take. They were tricked, but also not tricked at the same time?

A meme is not a crime.

“It’s just a joke bro” the ultimate criminal defence.

The prosecution established the defendant’s intent to reduce the turnout of black voters “ For example, on November 1, 2016, in or around the same time that Mackey was sending tweets suggesting the importance of limiting “black turnout,””

That’s mens rea.

Something being a meme does not make it a crime, but a crime being a meme does not make it legal.

Seriously what’s going on with multiple people in this thread? crystal clear attempt to trick people into not voting

“Doesn’t count because no one fell for it” (as if that excuses it anyways…)

“Well actually 4900 people fell for it”

“ALL 4900 OF THOSE WERE JUST PEOPLE JOKING AND I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I PULLED IT OUT OF MY BUTT”

I don't actually know if intent is sufficient in this case. So maybe if nobody actually fell for it (or they did, but the government didn't bother to submit any evidence of this) then that would excuse it in law. 4900 people might have texted the number, but maybe half of them didn't have a vote, and the other half figured it out later and ultimately did vote. Maybe not, but if you have a sworn statement from someone that they didn't vote because of this, then there's no ambiguity about whether the harm actually occurred.

Democrats have a highly sophisticated harvesting system. A ballot is worth about $7 and each ballot is cross referenced weeks leading up to and weeks following an election to ensure each one is turned in. If a voter doesn't want to vote, people show up at their door to assist them. In 2022 ballot curing was introduced to ensure that each ballot is filled out correctly. In addition to ballot curing, and harvesting, committees exist to judge voter intent. Given the economic incentives, political incentives, and very sophisticated partisan elections teams within Boards of elections, its unlikely a single person wasn't able to vote. Rather than 4,900 victims, how about they come up with a single name a single individual who wasn't able to vote. That person doesn't exist.

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