Crystal Mason’s case caught national attention after a judge sentenced her to five years in prison for submitting a provisional ballot while prohibited from voting.
By Philip Jankowski
Dallas Morning News
https://www.dallasnews.com/
AUSTIN — After nearly 10 years, the voter fraud case against Tarrant County resident Crystal Mason came to a close Thursday with the state’s highest criminal court ruling that evidence was insufficient to uphold a conviction.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals ended what one of Mason’s attorneys described as a voter fraud case built on an “innocent mistake.”
Mason said she was relieved the case was over and hoped her experience would encourage others to vote.
“In all these years, I never lost my faith that justice would be done,” she said. “If the right to vote weren’t so important, they wouldn’t be trying to take it away.”
The case attracted national attention from voting rights groups, which pointed to Mason’s punishment as an example of the harsh consequences of Texas election laws. Mason was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot that was ultimately rejected and never counted.
During the long appeals process, Mason, 51, emerged as a voting rights advocate herself, founding Crystal Mason “The Fight,” an organization focused on combating voter suppression.
“One of the things Mason said throughout this process is that this prosecution shows how important the right to vote is, and how critical it is that people exercise that right to vote,” said her attorney, Thomas Buser-Clancy with the ACLU of Texas.
Mason’s prosecution helped spur a change in Texas election law.
In 2018, a Tarrant County judge sentenced Mason to five years in prison for illegally voting after she cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 presidential election. At the time, Mason was on supervised release for a 2011 federal tax fraud conviction, making her ineligible to vote under a Texas law that bars people from voting until they have fully completed a felony sentence.
Mason has said she did not know she was ineligible when she filled out the provisional ballot. The ballot was rejected and never counted. After a poll worker reported the incident, Tarrant County prosecutors charged her with illegal voting.
The Texas Legislature passed a sweeping 2021 elections bill included a provision requiring prosecutors to prove that a person knew they were ineligible to vote before they could be convicted of illegal voting. The change applied retroactively.
Lawmakers from both parties pointed to Mason’s prosecution while arguing for the new standard.
Mason appealed her conviction under the new law. After legal challenges, a Fort Worth appeals court ordered her conviction overturned in 2024.
Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells appealed, calling on the Court of Criminal Appeals to find that evidence against Mason was sufficient to reinstate her conviction.
Sorrells, in a statement Thursday, did not address the ruling directly.
“Illegal voting remains a crime in Texas,” he said. “If there is evidence that someone knowingly violates our election laws in Tarrant County, we will investigate it and, when the evidence supports it, prosecute it.”
In its unsigned decision, the court majority upheld the 2024 ruling from the 2nd Court of Criminal Appeals. Dissenting were Presiding Judge David J. Schenck, as well as Judges Kevin Yeary, Lee Finley and Gina Parker.
Austin Bureau
Philip Jankowski has covered government, politics and criminal justice in Texas for 17 years. He previously worked for the Austin American-Statesman, the Killeen Daily Herald and the Taylor Press. Philip is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
