The Star-Telegram of Texas has the depressing story of Crystal Mason, a 43-year-old woman who was just sentenced to 5 years in prison for illegally voting in the 2016 presidential election. What did she do wrong, exactly? She was on a “supervised” release from prison and says that she wasn’t told she was not eligible to vote. Her attorney is a bit flabbergasted at the sentence, as he should be.
"I find it amazing that the government feels she made this up," St. John told the court. "She was never told that she couldn't vote, and she voted in good faith. Why would she risk going back to prison for something that is not going to change her life?" [...]
During her testimony, Mason — who served just shy of three years in federal prison — told the court that she was assigned a provisional ballot after she arrived at her usual polling place and discovered that her name was not on the voter roll.
The judge asked her why she hadn’t more thoroughly read all of the documents given to her when she signed for her release. Mason explained that no one had told her, and she hadn’t even considered losing her right to vote was an issue. In fact, she only decided to vote because her mother insisted. Mason’s interest in getting out of prison was more about getting to see her children graduate in person, as she had been in jail since 2011 on a tax-fraud conviction.*
She had gone to vote at her mother's insistence and brought her driver's license as identification, according to her testimony. When poll workers could not find her name on the list of registered voters, Mason said, she obtained a provisional ballot and was coached through the process by a worker.
Mason testified that she did not remember the form saying anything about people on supervised release being prohibited from voting.
Let’s take a grand walk down memory lane all the way to April of 2017.
The place was North Carolina and a 67-year-old women decided to vote for Trump and then used her mother’s name to vote for Trump again.
A state prosecutor said he will not bring voter-fraud charges against a Catawba County woman who said she cast an illegal vote for Donald Trump last year to fulfill her mother’s dying wish. [...]
“This woman is 67 years old and has never run afoul of the law for anything more serious than a speeding ticket,” Learner said in a statement. “It is not in the public’s interest to charge her with this felony offense.”
Well, a speeding ticket isn’t as bad as tax fraud, that’s for sure. But the reason this lady wasn’t charged with fraud makes sense.
“It makes no difference who the vote was cast for,” he said in his statement. “This office consistently demonstrates compassion in dealing with first-time, non-violent offenders.
“She made a mistake out of sheer ignorance without any intent to defraud or commit a crime. She was grieving the loss of her mother and believed that the power of attorney allowed her to cast this vote.”
But the common sense law that we all hope wins out in cases like this seem to only apply to conservative people—and frequently white people whose “bending” of the laws benefit conservative people.
*Surprisingly, the American public has yet to see Donald Trump’s tax returns.