This is atrocious.
If she had known it was illegal, Crystal Mason said she would have never cast a vote in the 2016 presidential election.
The 43-year-old former tax preparer hadn’t even planned on voting until her mother encouraged her to do it. She had only recently been released from federal prison for a 2012 tax fraud conviction, in which she pleaded guilty to inflating returns for her clients, her attorney, J. Warren St. John, told The Washington Post.
She was still on community supervision at the time of the election — but no one, including her probation officer, St. John said, ever told her that being a felon on supervision meant she couldn’t vote under Texas law.
Now, she’s going back to prison for casting a ballot illegally — for five years.
Mason was indicted on a charge of illegal voting in Tarrant County, Tex., last year and found guilty by State District Judge Ruben Gonzalez on Thursday, despite her protestations that she simply was not aware that she was barred from casting a ballot and never would have done it had she known.
As she told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram at the time she was indicted: “You think I would jeopardize my freedom? You honestly think I would ever want to leave my babies again? That was the hardest thing in my life to deal with. Who would — as a mother, as a provider — leave their kids over voting?”
Both the Trib story and the Star-Telegram story contain tough-guy quotes from Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, beating their chests about fighting vote fraud. It’s ridiculous, but it’s also a travesty. How does putting this woman in jail for FIVE YEARS serve justice in any way? If we treated white-collar crime with this kind of ferocity, no one would ever get scammed again. For that matter, if we took election security this seriously, no one would ever worry about Russians or hackers again. We sure have some screwed-up priorities.
And the one person who voted twice for Trump what did she get? A free write they decided not to prosecute. There is no justice when the Republicans are in charge.
Manny you don’t know what you are talking about, asshat. Democrats are prosecuted under Republicans and Republicans are prosecuted under Democrats. If you bring some actual evidence to the table I might listen to your case but Democrats keep trying to divert resources from the issues at hand.
His comment was a reference to a specific event. Otherwise known as “evidence.”
C.I. name calling does not make you smart, if you would read you would know about the case, but I know that you are not capable of finding it so here, and did I say Texas?
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/3/30/1753277/-Black-woman-gets-5-years-for-voting-once-no-charges-for-white-woman-who-voted-twice
Like I said the Trump Party is not endowed with people who read, the first hint of that is that they support a Putin puppet.
A free ride is what I intended on my first post.
Again, please don’t confuse asshat C.I., with my moniker, C.L. He/she is apparently unaware of the relative civility practiced here.
C.I. in your world it is Trumpkins and Democrats, that is the problem with the Trumpkins they forget that we are all Americans. But then again Trumpkins like to support people that chosen by the Russians so maybe in their small world it makes sense.
add the word were between that and chosen in the comment above