A man who was convicted for sharing memes during the 2016 election is about to be set free after being sentenced to seven months in prison.
Douglass Mackey was found guilty of conspiracy for disseminating memes suggesting that Democrats could vote for then-candidate Hillary Clinton through text messages, social media, and other invalid methods. Prosecutors argued that Mackey conspired with others to post the fraudulent messages on X between September and November 2016.
One of the memes featured an “African Americans for Hillary” sign and suggested that voters text “Hillary” to 59925 to “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home.” Another meme was in Spanish, asking Hispanic voters to do the same. About 4,900 people texted the provided number before November 5, 2016.
Now, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed Mackey’s conviction. “On appeal, Mackey argues, inter alia, that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he knowingly agreed to join the charged conspiracy. We agree,” the court’s ruling read.
BREAKING: THE SECOND CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HAS THROWN OUT MY CONVICTION FOR LACK OF EVIDENCE
— Douglass Mackey (@DougMackeyCase) July 9, 2025
THE CASE HAS BEEN REMANDED TO THE DISTRICT COURT WITH ORDERS TO IMMEDIATELY DISMISS
HALLELUJAH!
The court not only reversed Mackey’s conviction but also remanded the case to the district court to acquit him.
The court’s ruling held that the government failed to prove Mackey knowingly joined a conspiracy to suppress votes for Clinton. He did admit to posting the memes. However, the judges argued that this alone is not a crime under the statute for which he was convicted, which requires an actual agreement between “two or more persons” with the express purpose of violating voting rights.
The court also found that the government did not present direct evidence proving Mackey saw or responded to private group chats in a forum titled the “War Room.” Users in this group chat discussed similar memes.
Instead, Mackey told the court he had downloaded the memes from 4chan without collaborating with any group. “The government did not contend at trial that Mackey ever communicated with members of the War Room offline, or that he participated in any online discussions with them outside of the War Room related to the conspiracy,” the judges highlighted.
2nd Circuit has overturned the conviction of Douglass Mackey in the fake "conspiracy" to defraud voters by posting MEMES about voting-by-text. The Feds prosecuted him in NYC because the Twitter *servers* were there.
— Maxwell Meyer (@mualphaxi) July 9, 2025
A victory for free speech and a loss for bogus prosecutions. pic.twitter.com/iB8dlUr2Dl
Even further, the judges pointed out that when Mackey posted the memes, he used the #MAGA hashtag, which contradicts the notion that he was trying to trick Democrats into voting from home. “Including that hashtag alongside a text-to-vote meme is fundamentally at odds with a purpose of deceiving Clinton supporters into believing they could vote by text,” the ruling read.
The fact that Mackey had to spend any time in prison for sharing memes is absurd and a clear miscarriage of justice. But it is not surprising given what we now know about the FBI and Justice Department’s actions after Trump won the election. It was clear that many officials abused their positions to target those with opposing political views.
It’s good that Mackey has been vindicated. But he can’t get those months back when he was incarcerated. Hopefully, a lawsuit is coming next.
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