FORT WORTH, Texas — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is sending Crystal Mason’s illegal voting case back to a lower court to review whether she knew it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release.
Mason, of Rendon, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 after being convicted of illegal voting in Tarrant County. She submitted a provisional ballot that was ultimately not counted during the 2016 election while she was on federally supervised release in a tax fraud case. Mason has said she didn’t know she wasn’t allowed to vote, and in March 2018 she was convicted of illegally voting, a decision that was affirmed by the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals.
Texas’ highest criminal appellate court on Wednesday found that the court erred by “failing to require proof” that Mason had “actual knowledge that it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release” and sent the case back to the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals to evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence.
