Texas woman gets 5 years in prison for voting illegally

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Oh NOW I see what the real problem is...an oversupply of melanin.

 

[Chillfolks]

Rote also was deemed to have 'mental deficiencies' which probably played a part as well. That said, 5 years is ridiculous.

What is appropriate? In VA we had a state seat election that ended in a coin toss after a tie. One fraudulent vote could of swung that election? What is a fitting punishment for fraud?

 

[Kreton]

Don't forget the one in NC who knowingly voted illegally for Trump and got off with nothing.

 

[upsideguy]

Voter fraud is fake news, doesn't happen.

No question that on occasion that someone votes when they have no right to vote. The right, however, likes to perpetuate this myth that its somehow a problem to the point that it compromises the integrity of the election. Unfortunately there are some less educated folks that buy this nonsense.

A five year jail sentence for a single instance of voting when ineligible well illustrates why voter fraud is a myth. It is an obnoxious sentence for the "hurt" to our society this caused, don't you think. The idea that lot's of people would knowingly do this in sufficient numbers to actually alter the outcome an election is patently absurd.

So no, this instance does not in anyway tell us there is a voter fraud problem.

 

[markjs]

No question that on occasion that someone votes when they have no right to vote. The right, however, likes to perpetuate this myth that its somehow a problem to the point that it compromises the integrity of the election. Unfortunately there are some less educated folks that buy this nonsense.

A five year jail sentence for a single instance of voting when ineligible well illustrates why voter fraud is a myth. It is an obnoxious sentence for the "hurt" to our society this caused, don't you think. The idea that lot's of people would knowingly do this in sufficient numbers to actually alter the outcome an election is patently absurd.

So no, this instance does not in anyway tell us there is a voter fraud problem.

Any time there is voter fraud it is arguably a voter fraud problem, but it's not a significant or widespread problem, despite the sour grapes of Republicans who lose races.

 

[upsideguy]

Any time there is voter fraud it is arguably a voter fraud problem, but it's not a significant or widespread problem, despite the sour grapes of Republicans who lose races.

Sour grapes are used to make pathetic whines....

 

[holbritter]

What is appropriate? In VA we had a state seat election that ended in a coin toss after a tie. One fraudulent vote could of swung that election? What is a fitting punishment for fraud?

1 year and probation. Manslaughter can get less than 5 years.

 

[jimbo]

Crystal Mason was sentenced to prison for committing a felony while on supervised release, which amounts to a probation.

From GQ

https://www.gq.com/story/voter-fraud-racist-lie


A Texas woman has been sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in 2016 while on supervised release from prison, unaware that doing so violated state law.

In 2011, a Texas court sentenced Crystal Mason to five years in prison for inflating returns on behalf of clients of her tax preparation business. She earned a supervised release after three years, and in 2016, she went to her usual polling place to vote, careful to bring her driver's license to comply with the state's voter identification requirements. When her name could not be found on the rolls, polling place workers kindly walked her through the process of casting a provisional ballot until her eligibility to vote could be ascertained at a later date.

This decision proved disastrous. State law, unbeknownst to Mason and undisclosed by the election workers who helped her, prohibits those convicted of a felony from voting until they have served their entire sentence, including any period of incarceration, parole, supervision, or probation. On Wednesday, for her crime of casting a provisional ballot in a general election held two years ago, a Republican-appointed Texas judge sentenced Mason to five years in prison—the same term to which she had been sentenced for actual fraud five years earlier.

Mason had to sign an affidavit at the polling place stating, among many other things, that she was not serving any part of a punishment for a prior felony conviction at the time—a point on which Judge Ruben Gonzalez harped at her sentencing. "There's a legal connotation to that, right?" he asked her. But relying on her failure to read and understand a boilerplate legal document given to her by poll workers as evidence of criminality is as cynical as it is pedantic. No rational person would believe that Mason cast a provisional ballot understanding that if she was wrong, she would go to prison. "My son is about to graduate. Why would I jeopardize that? Not to vote," she pleaded. "I didn't even want to go vote." Judge Gonzalez was unpersuaded.

Judge didn't buy her story.

 

[Deuce]

She was likely on a list somewhere and used her ID.

How else?

But the ID didn't have anything to do with that. In a hypothetical state without ID laws, she still would have identified herself and been on the same "list." The only type of voter fraud an ID can possibly catch is voter impersonation, which she did not attempt and is incredibly rare.

 

[Vadinho]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...-gets-5-years-prison-voting-illegally-n861516

A Texas woman was sentenced to five years behind bars this week for voting illegally in the 2016 election while on supervised release from federal prison.

Crystal Mason, 43, testified in court that she did not know that she was ineligible to vote due to her 2011 fraud conviction before casting a provisional ballot in the presidential election. In Texas, knowingly voting illegally is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
===================================================================================
Maybe they also bused her to New Hampshire to participate in the 'massive voter fraud' that Trump claimed cost him the popular vote lead in 2016. I'll bet the Repubs are already looking into that.

This is so wrong on so many levels that it makes me sick to my stomach. One mistaken vote is not worth five years of a life. Look at the messaging here though, she is being made a political and racial scapegoat. Texas disgusts me, what a heartless cruel bunch of people.

 

[JackA]

Voter fraud is fake news, doesn't happen.

It seldom happens. It doesn't take many smarts to realize that if "massive voter fraud" were happening, we would have proof of it by now. Instead, studies over the years have shown that modern voter fraud does happen but the incidents of it are scattered.

 

[ThoughtEx.]

5 years? Seriously?
Just wondering- are judges allowed to invest in private prisons?

yes they are.

Federal judges may invest in stocks, but to guard against conflicts of interest, they are subject to a code of conduct overseen by the Judicial Conference, a policymaking body for the federal courts. Its code, mirrored in federal law, says judges should avoid “impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities,” and should disqualify themselves from cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” This includes situations where the judge or the judge’s spouse or dependent child “has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy…or any other interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding.” The code states that judges “should refrain from financial and business dealings that exploit the judicial position.”

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-j...hile-her-husband-invested-in-private-prisons/

So basically, they can, and are responsible for deciding whether they are violating the code of conduct themselves. If they are accused of violating the code of conduct, other judges decide if it was bad. And I can tell ya, if Cops back Cops in bad shoots. Judges definitely back Judges when it comes to code of conduct decisions.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...-gets-5-years-prison-voting-illegally-n861516

A Texas woman was sentenced to five years behind bars this week for voting illegally in the 2016 election while on supervised release from federal prison.

Crystal Mason, 43, testified in court that she did not know that she was ineligible to vote due to her 2011 fraud conviction before casting a provisional ballot in the presidential election. In Texas, knowingly voting illegally is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
===================================================================================
Maybe they also bused her to New Hampshire to participate in the 'massive voter fraud' that Trump claimed cost him the popular vote lead in 2016. I'll bet the Repubs are already looking into that.

The woman cast a PROVISIONAL ballot.

Aren't PROVISIONAL ballots to be used in situations where the voter thinks that they are eligible to vote, but some question arises as to whether they are actually eligible to vote?

Don't PROVISIONAL ballots only get counted once the voter's eligibility to vote has been determined?

Wasn't this woman's ballot not counted because she was determined NOT to be eligible to vote - regardless of whether she thought that she was or not?

Since the ballot was NOT counted (in fact the envelope wasn't even opened so no one knows what her vote would have been had she been eligible to vote, did this woman ACTUALLY "vote" or did she only claim that she believed that she had a right to vote?

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Obviously the differences between the two cases is as clear as black and white.

[Ducks into "REALLY BAD JOKE Retaliation Shelter"]

 

[WCH]

This is so wrong on so many levels that it makes me sick to my stomach. One mistaken vote is not worth five years of a life. Look at the messaging here though, she is being made a political and racial scapegoat. Texas disgusts me, what a heartless cruel bunch of people.

She was scamming the taxpayers [you know the ones who work[ and got caught. There nothing racial about this.

 

[WCH]

Obviously the differences between the two cases is as clear as black and white.

[Ducks into "REALLY BAD JOKE Retaliation Shelter"]

Or one has a previous record.

 

[jimbo]

What is appropriate? In VA we had a state seat election that ended in a coin toss after a tie. One fraudulent vote could of swung that election? What is a fitting punishment for fraud?

That coin toss determined whether the Va legislature was Republican majority or Democrat majority. Your vote does count.

 

[VanceMack]

Sentence seems light. I’d like to see something along the lines of 12 years. And it should be uniformly applied along federal guidelines so that state judiciaries don’t enter into the mix. Unless the instances of fraud are local and state...then the states can sentence as they deem appropriate, but in my state I’d like to see them hammered.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Vadinho]

She was scamming the taxpayers [you know the ones who work[ and got caught. There nothing racial about this.

Right. The message was clear, if you vote illegally, you will go to jail for 5 years. It matters not if you did it without understanding the consequences or did it because you were confused, you are going to jail. And guess what type of person got this sentence? Yep, a black woman. It's Texas, everything in Texas is racial.

 

[WCH]

Right. The message was clear, if you vote illegally, you will go to jail for 5 years. It matters not if you did it without understanding the consequences or did it because you were confused, you are going to jail. And guess what type of person got this sentence? Yep, a black woman. It's Texas, everything in Texas is racial.

Did you see her previous record? She was fudging people's tax returns as a preparer. FRAUD. She knew what she was doing.

 

[Vadinho]

Did you see her previous record? She was fudging people's tax returns as a preparer. FRAUD. She knew what she was doing.

Regardless, that sentence is cruel and unusual punishment. The very fact that felons cannot vote is mired in racial politics itself. For a state that calls itself Christian, it is a sad culture that puts a person in jail for five years because she voted.

 

[JasperL]

Sentence seems light. I’d like to see something along the lines of 12 years. And it should be uniformly applied along federal guidelines so that state judiciaries don’t enter into the mix. Unless the instances of fraud are local and state...then the states can sentence as they deem appropriate, but in my state I’d like to see them hammered.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well, 12 years for what the facts indicate is almost surely a mistake seems a bit much tbh, and her "crime" was voting in an election after she'd been released from jail. Is that really even a "crime?"

But if you're going full out authoritarian on us, that would be fine just so long as the legislators or elections officials get 12 years for every voter wrongly thrown off the rolls. So if, say, thousands of voters are wrongly purged, they'd be looking at life sentences. That's the idea behind corrupt election con man Kris Kobach's efforts - throw a bunch of voters off without regard to whether they're properly registered or not - so let him and if his intentionally and fatally flawed matching system affects even ONE voter wrongly, throw his sorry ass in prison until he's old and decrepit.

Then we'd be looking at fairer elections. With your scheme, it's just a way to punish mostly innocent mistakes with severe penalties, but allowing the guys who REALLY affect outcomes, guys in suits like Kobach, free reign to rig them in their party's favor.

 

[WCH]

Regardless, that sentence is cruel and unusual punishment. The very fact that felons cannot vote is mired in racial politics itself. For a state that calls itself Christian, it is a sad culture that puts a person in jail for five years because she voted.

There's no "regardless" She was a crook....stealing from taxpayers.

 

[Lovebug]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/po...-gets-5-years-prison-voting-illegally-n861516

A Texas woman was sentenced to five years behind bars this week for voting illegally in the 2016 election while on supervised release from federal prison.

Crystal Mason, 43, testified in court that she did not know that she was ineligible to vote due to her 2011 fraud conviction before casting a provisional ballot in the presidential election. In Texas, knowingly voting illegally is a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
===================================================================================
Maybe they also bused her to New Hampshire to participate in the 'massive voter fraud' that Trump claimed cost him the popular vote lead in 2016. I'll bet the Repubs are already looking into that.

Could you imagine our prison population exploding if we convicted everyone voting illegally or those who abet?

 

[Lovebug]

Regardless, that sentence is cruel and unusual punishment. The very fact that felons cannot vote is mired in racial politics itself. For a state that calls itself Christian, it is a sad culture that puts a person in jail for five years because she voted.

You got every grievance you ever had in that one post.