Andrew Frisch, Mackey's lawyer, contested to the jury that his client was not aiming to deceive voters with his 2016 post of Hillary Clinton memes which urged supporters to "vote from home" via text messaging. Frisch asserted that Mackey had merely been attempting to go viral, declaring that "it means what it says — he was posting stuff" and that "a lot of it was online trash-talking."
According to Rolling Stone, he pointed out that people only texted the number after the media had covered the memes.
March 23, 2023
Conversely, federal prosecutors contended that Mackey had collaborated with other meme makers to make the Twitter posts as credible as possible. Assistant US Attorney Turner Buford alleged that this was an effort to "vaporize votes" rather than change them, as the number given could receive incoming messages.
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On November 3, Mackey had posted that he had "haphazardly post[ed] a meme" which had ended up on cable television, a fact that the prosecution used to support their case.
A witness testifying under the name "Microchip" provided further evidence. When asked whether he believed that voting via text was a valid method, he replied, "not at all." Microchip went on to explain that his purpose in posting so frequently in 2016 was to "destroy the reputation of Hillary Clinton" and, in regards to the John Podesta emails, that "my talent is to make things weird and strange, so there’s controversy."
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Given this testimony, Mackey's lawyer argued that the meme's message was "ludicrous to anyone with a basic knowledge of how presidential elections work." Nevertheless, nearly 5,000 voters fell for it. The jury will now decide whether Mackey's actions constituted a criminal conspiracy, with the outcome of this trial likely to have lasting implications for the integrity of future elections.
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