The New York Times
His ballot didn’t count. She faces up to 5 years in prison for launching it.
On election day 2016, Crystal Mason went to vote after her mother insisted that she make her voice heard in the presidential election. When her name did not appear on the official voting lists at her polling place in Tarrant County, Texas, she filled out a provisional ballot, without thinking about it. Mason’s ballot was never officially counted or counted because she had no voting rights: she was under supervised freedom after serving five years for tax fraud. However, that ballot led her to a lengthy appeals process after a state district court sentenced her to five years in prison for illegal voting, as she was a parole criminal when she cast her vote. Mason claims he did not know he was ineligible to vote. Sign the New York Times newsletter The Morning “It’s very difficult to wake up every day knowing that prison is at stake, trying to keep a smile on your face in front of your children, and you don’t know the outcome,” Mason said in an interview. by phone. “Your future is in someone else’s hands because of a simple mistake.” Her case is being referred to the Texas Criminal Appeals Court, the highest state court for criminal cases, whose judges said on Wednesday they had decided to hear it. Mason unsuccessfully requested a retrial and lost the case in an appeals court. The new appeal is the last chance for Mason, 46, who is on bail on appeal, to avoid arrest. If her case goes through the federal court system, Mason will have to appeal from a cell. Alison Grinter, one of Mason’s lawyers, said the federal government made it clear in the 2002 Help America Vote Act that provisional ballots should not be criminalized because they represent “an offer to vote – they are not a vote in itself”. She said Mason was unaware that she was ineligible and was still convicted, and that Texas electoral laws stipulate that a person must vote illegally to be guilty of a crime. “Crystal never wanted to be a supporter of the right to vote,” said Grinter on Thursday. “She didn’t want to be a political football player here. She just wanted to be a mother and grandmother and put her life on track, but she really accepted and ran with it, and she refuses to be bullied. “A grand jury in the Tarrant County District Court has indicted Mason for violating Texas electoral laws, a spokesman for the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s office said in a statement. “Our office offered Mason the option of parole in this case, which she declined,” said the statement. “Mason withdrew from a jury trial and chose to proceed with the trial before the first instance judge.” In March 2018, Judge Ruben Gonzalez of the 432nd District Court of Texas found Mason guilty of a second degree crime for voting illegally. According to Tommy Buser-Clancy, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas, Mason should never have been convicted. If there is ambiguity in someone’s eligibility, the provisional voting system will be there to answer for that, he said. “This is very scary,” he said of Mason’s conviction, “and it destroys the whole purpose of the provisional voting system.” If her eligibility is incorrect, he said, “this must be the end of the story.” The appeals court’s decision could set an important precedent for the future of how the public interprets the vote, especially if it is confused, according to Joseph Fishkin, a professor of law at the University of Texas at Austin. He said he hoped the court would establish a principle of not “criminalizing people for being confused about the complexities of the interaction between criminal law and electoral law”. Fishkin said he and many other legal experts believe that if the court upholds Mason’s conviction, the state will be in direct conflict with the federal Help America Vote Act. the country that people are confident that when they act in good faith and do not try to act quickly, you will not start accusing them of crimes, ”Fishkin said Thursday. “If this case persists, this is obviously worrying, because many people who may not understand the details of their status or who are allowed to vote will be deterred from voting.” In the United States, 5.2 million Americans are unable to vote because of a previous felony conviction, according to the Sentencing Project, a research organization dedicated to crime and punishment. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office said 531 election crimes have been prosecuted since 2004. The results of these cases were not immediately available. At least 72% of Paxton’s electoral fraud cases target people of color, according to The Houston Chronicle. Mason’s cause received support from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Clark Neily, senior vice president of criminal justice at the institute, said the case represented an example of excessive criminalization. “It is putting people in a position where they can commit a crime without even knowing that they are breaking a law,” he said. Celina Stewart, chief counselor of the League of Voters, who filed supporting documents on Mason’s behalf, said her case sent “a very clear message” that people with felony convictions should be cautious. “She is being made an example, and the example is that you don’t want the returning citizens, the blacks, the black women to vote,” she said. “This is a shocking narrative and we have to step back, because that is not how democracy works.” This article was originally published in The New York Times. © 2021 The New York Times Company