A Texas appeals court has thrown out a five-year prison sentence for Crystal Mason, a Texas woman who was sentenced for trying to cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 presidential election that was rejected.
Mason, now 49, attempted to vote in Fort Worth in the 2016 even though she was ineligible because she was still on supervised release – which is like probation – for a tax felony. She has always maintained she had no idea she was ineligible and only tried to cast a ballot because her mother urged her to.
A judge convicted her in a 2018 trial that lasted just a few hours.
Losing the right to vote is ridiculous.
Agreed. Felons should be allowed to vote. Pirsoners should be allowed to vote. Just because you committed a crime doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be allowed to participate in a democratic election. There is, as far as I can remember, nothing in the Constitution that bars felons or the incarcerated from voting.
Not to mention that people in jail waiting for trial who can’t afford bail aren’t allowed to vote either if the election happens while they’re in jail, even though there’s been no conviction.
In Germany there are only a few crimes that take away your voting rights and I am fine with these:
source
Seems like a good one. We should borrow that.
I’ll have you know it’s called lobbying and it’s perfectly legal! For some reason.
Especially when prisoners are counted toward a state’s apportionment. Now you end up with evil conservative scumbags petitioning to have prisons in their states/districts so they get those extra resources, without all of those damn liberal votes.
It’s essentially the modern equivalent of the 3/5ths compromise.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1100064032/deliberate-indifference
It’s definitely there because of the same politics.
They aren’t even trying to hide it because you can legally use prisoners as slaves.