Late night host Jimmy Kimmel joked Wednesday night that Trump voters should cast their ballots after Tuesday’s election — and now several rightwing influencers are calling on President Trump to have Mr. Kimmel investigated for election interference the way the Biden administration did to alt-right troll Douglass Mackey.

“If you can vote early, vote early. If you can’t vote early, vote on time,” the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host said. “If you want to vote for Trump, vote late, vote very late. Do your voting on Thursday or maybe Friday.”

The comparisons to Mackey instantly went viral on X. Mackey was sentenced last October to seven months in prison for “conspiracy to interfere with potential voters’ right to vote” for posting memes in the leadup to the 2016 telling black Americans to vote by text. He is out on bond while he waits for a decision in his appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

“The Biden Administration sent Douglass Mackey to prison for making this exact joke,” The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh posted to X, getting 26,000 likes. “I’m dead serious when I say if Trump wins he should have Jimmy Kimmel arrested and jailed. Force these scumbags to live by their own rules.”

“Jimmy Kimmel instructs viewers that if they’re voting for Trump they should vote late like Thursday or Friday. Wasn’t Douglass Mackey sentenced to prison for doing something similar?” Libs of TikTok posted to X, getting 47,000 likes. “Will the Justice Department investigate Jimmy Kimmel?”

Mackey posted a clip of Kimmel with the text, “First prosecution of the new Trump administration.”

Yet to the Sun, Mackey says he doesn’t think Mr. Kimmel should face prosecution. He does, though, say that the fact Mr. Kimmel likely won’t face any investigation or prosecution is proof of a “double standard” and a politically motivated Justice Department.

“What Jimmy Kimmel was saying was a joke,” Mackey tells the Sun. “I don’t think people should be locked up for jokes in America or prosecuted.”

“When they prosecuted me, they subpoenaed all my phone records, email records, bank records, everything else — very invasive,” Mackey says. “Are they going to do that to Jimmy Kimmel? Is his life going to be poured over to see if he intended for Trump supporters not to vote? It’s a very dangerous road to go down, and I hope we don’t go down that, really.”

Mackey was prosecuted under a Reconstruction-era law, 18 U.S.C. Section 241, which was enacted to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from conspiring to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate” black Americans from voting or otherwise exercising their constitutional rights.

Mackey tweeted anonymously under the handle “Ricky Vaughn” in the leadup to the 2016 election. He had more than 55,000 followers and his posts were often offensive and racist. His profile picture featured Charlie Sheen from “Major League” wearing a red MAGA hat. MIT Media Lab rated the account as one of the most influential online — above NBC News and CBS News.

More than 4,000 persons texted the number listed on the memes Mackey shared, one of which featured a black woman with an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. It’s unclear, though, whether these people then didn’t vote or whether they texted out of curiosity after several outlets reported on the memes.

The Harvard Law Review weighed in on the case in Mackey’s favor in March, writing that it “does indeed strain belief” to think black voters were confused by the memes from an account with a MAGA hat in the profile picture.

“While many would consider the speech in question to be repellent, the precedent created by Mackey is a dangerous one that lessens First Amendment protections in the digital marketplace of ideas,” the Harvard Law Review article says. “Using memes to prove a criminal conspiracy risks chilling a vast amount of speech on social media.”

2016 was the first Twitter, now X, election. In 2024, the memes have moved to real life. Trump is a master at creating viral images like the garbage truck this week or his visit to McDonald’s the week before. The coconut tree and Brat were the big Harris memes.

Jimmy Kimmel averages 1.7 million viewers a night. On Tuesday, he skipped the comedy routine and delivered a 19-minute monologue on why Americans should not vote for Trump. He suggested viewers share the video with Trump-supporting friends and relatives.

Who should be the arbiter of what’s a joke — even if offensive — or maybe especially then? Those calling for retribution should think hard on that.