Texas Woman Sentenced to 5 Years for Voting Is Cleared

A Texas appeals court has tossed the conviction of a woman who was sentenced to five years in prison for voting while on probation for a tax crime. Crystal Mason, 49, has said she did not know she was ineligible to cast a ballot in the 2016 election, and the 2nd District Court of Appeals accepted that, The Guardian reported. “We conclude that the quantum of the evidence presented in this case is insufficient to support the conclusion that Mason actually realized that she voted knowing that she was ineligible to do so and, therefore, insufficient to support her conviction for illegal voting,” Justice Wade Birdwell wrote. The same court previously upheld Mason’s conviction—but the state’s highest court found it erred by not requiring proof that she knew what she was doing was a crime and ordered it to reconsider her appeal. Mason’s ballot was provisional and was never even counted.