Florida man tried to get voters to cast invalid ballots in 2016 election, feds say
A Florida man considered to be a major media influencer was arrested Wednesday and charged with violating the civil rights of voters in the 2016 presidential election by attempting to get them to cast invalid ballots.
Although the victims of Douglass Mackey, 31, of West Palm Beach, were not identified in court papers, sources said the scheme targeted supporters of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her unsuccessful bid for President against Donald Trump.
The scheme may have duped as many as 5,000 people, officials said.
Mackey, formerly of Manhattan, is charged in a federal complaint by an FBI agent filed in the Eastern District in Brooklyn with conspiring with others to prevent persons from their right to vote.
Conviction could carry up to 10 years in prison.
One of the methods in the scheme Mackey allegedly used between September and November of 2016 was to encourage people to vote for their candidate "via text message or social media and thus fail to cast their ballots in a legally valid manner," officials said. On the internet, Mackey used the pseudonym Ricky Vaughn.
In one example, officials said, "on November 1, 2016, Mackey tweeted an image of an African American woman standing in front of an ‘African Americans for [the Candidate] ‘ sign" with a text that read: "Avoid the Line. Vote from home. Text ‘[Candidate’s first name]' to 59925. Vote for [the Candidate] and be a part of history …. Paid for by "[Candidate] for President 2016."
On or before Election Day, "at least 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted ‘[Candidate’s first name]’or some derivative to the 59925 text number," officials said.
The complaint against Mackey said he belonged to online groups continually trying to use the Internet to spread false information in order to undermine candidates they opposed.
In one electronic communication, Mackey told an associate in reference to the 2016 presidential election: "Obviously, we can win Pennsylvania. The key is to drive up turnout with non-college whites, and limit Black turnout," the complaint said.
Eventually, Twitter shut down his account for "targeted abuse," which is defined as an attempt to harass, intimidate or silence someone else’s voice, officials said.
According to officials, Mackey established a Twitter account, under a false name, in 2016 that had 58,000 followers. An analysis by the MIT Media Lab in February of 2016 ranked Mackey as the 107th most important influencer of the upcoming election, ahead of NBC News at 114, Stephen Colbert at 119, and Newt Gingrich at 141.
"There is no place in public discourse for lies and misinformation to defraud citizens of their right to vote," Acting Eastern District United States Attorney Seth DuCharme said in a statement. "With Mackey’s arrest we serve notice that those who would subvert the democratic process in this manner cannot rely on the cloak of Internet anonymity to evade responsibility for their crimes."
"What Mackey allegedly did … amounted to nothing short of vote theft," said New York FBI director William Sweeney.
Bob Kessler covers federal law, including law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, DEA, IRS and ATF, as well as the federal courts.
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