For Mason, the problem began in 2016. A mother of three, she had recently been released from custody after serving time for tax fraud.
It was a big year at the polls, with the presidency up for grabs as well as control of Congress, and Mason said her mother encouraged her to vote.
So, on November 8, 2016, she arrived at a local polling place in Tarrant County, Texas, to vote. But Mason discovered her name was not on the voting rolls. No matter: An election official offered him a provisional ballot to fill out.
But in February 2017, she was back in custody, this time facing charges of illegal voting, a second-degree felony with a possible sentence of up to 20 years.
In Texas, people with criminal records automatically have their right to vote restored – but only after their sentence has been “fully served.” Mason thought her release from prison meant she was free.
But Texas law considers periods of probation, community supervision, and parole to be part of the sentence.
Mason had no idea she couldn’t vote. She was on supervised release when she voted, but said she received a voter registration card while in a halfway house after her release.
Thus began a legal odyssey that continued throughout this year.
Defense attorneys argued that Mason did not intentionally vote illegally and asked for testimony from the election official who gave Mason his provisional vote.
They also noted that Mason’s vote didn’t count anyway. Provisional ballots are subject to additional scrutiny and are not counted unless the voter’s eligibility is confirmed.
The Tarrant County district attorney, however, argued that prosecuting Mason was a matter of maintaining election security. In 2018, Mason was sentenced to five years in prison.
But when he appealed the long sentence, his situation made international headlines. She ultimately served 10 months before being released on bond — and just in March of this year, the Texas Second Court of Appeals overturned her conviction.
Still, District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a Republican, promised in May to appeal the court’s decision.
In response to Al Jazeera’s questions, his office shared a press release that said, in part: “This office will protect ballot boxes from fraudsters who think our laws do not apply to them.”
Mason, however, said the blame lies with the “messy” process surrounding the restoration of voting rights in Texas. She expressed surprise at the public prosecutor’s decision.
“I was shocked,” Mason told Al Jazeera. “I feel like instead of attacking one person, let’s fix the system.”
Experts say the patchwork of laws in the U.S. — which vary from state to state — promotes situations like Mason’s, ensnaring otherwise innocent people.
“Confusion has real consequences, as evidenced by Ms. Mason’s case,” Patrick Berry, a lawyer at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, told Al Jazeera. “States like Texas, Florida and Tennessee are prosecuting people for mistakes, and it’s often unfair.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
