For Mason, the difficulty began in 2016. A mom of three, she had not too long ago been launched from custody after serving a sentence for felony tax fraud.
It was an enormous yr on the poll field, with the presidency up for grabs in addition to management of Congress, and Mason mentioned her mom inspired her to vote.
So on November 8, 2016, she arrived at a neighborhood polling station in Tarrant County, Texas, to solid her poll. However Mason found her title was not on the voting rolls. Regardless of: An election employee supplied her a provisional poll to fill out as an alternative.
However by February 2017, she was again in custody, this time dealing with costs of unlawful voting, a second-degree felony with a potential sentence of as much as 20 years.
In Texas, folks with felony data mechanically have their proper to vote restored — however solely after their sentence has been “absolutely discharged”. Mason thought her launch from jail meant she was within the clear.
However Texas regulation considers durations of parole, neighborhood supervision and probation to be a part of the sentence.
Mason had no thought she couldn’t vote. She had been on supervised launch when she solid her poll, however she mentioned she had been despatched a voter registration card whereas staying at a midway home following her launch.
Thus started a authorized odyssey that has continued via this yr.
Defence legal professionals have argued Mason didn’t knowingly vote illegally, and so they known as on the testimony of the election employee who gave Mason her provisional poll.
In addition they famous that Mason’s vote didn’t rely anyway. Provisional ballots are topic to further scrutiny and should not tallied except voter eligibility is confirmed.
The Tarrant County district legal professional, nonetheless, argued that prosecuting Mason was a query of upholding election safety. In 2018, Mason was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
However as she appealed the prolonged sentence, her plight earned worldwide headlines. She in the end served 10 months earlier than her launch on bond — and simply this March, Texas’s Second Court docket of Appeals overturned her conviction.
Nonetheless, District Legal professional Phil Sorrells, a Republican, has pledged as not too long ago as Could to attraction the courtroom’s resolution.
In response to questions from Al Jazeera, his workplace shared a information launch that reads, partly, “This workplace will defend the poll field from fraudsters who suppose our legal guidelines do not apply to them.”
Mason, nonetheless, has maintained that the fault lies with the “messy” course of surrounding the restoration of voting rights in Texas. She expressed shock on the district legal professional’s resolution.
“I used to be shocked,” Mason advised Al Jazeera. “I really feel like, as an alternative of attacking one particular person, let’s repair the system.”
Consultants say the patchwork of legal guidelines within the US — differing state by state — fosters conditions like Mason’s, ensnaring in any other case harmless folks.
“Confusion has actual penalties, as evidenced by Ms Mason’s case,” Patrick Berry, a lawyer with New York College’s Brennan Middle for Justice, advised Al Jazeera. “States like Texas, Florida and Tennessee are prosecuting folks for errors, and it’s usually unjust.”
