Mason, a Black woman who had previously been convicted of federal tax fraud, could wind up in prison for five years although her provisional ballot was never counted.
Now, she will have her conviction further evaluated by the state's Second Court of Appeals, the American Civil Liberties Union in Texas said in a press release Wednesday.
The Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the highest criminal court in Texas, said the state would have to prove that Mason knew she was voting illegally. Mason insists she didn’t know casting the vote was against the law.
“My life has been upended for what was, at worst, an innocent misunderstanding of casting a provisional ballot that was never even counted,” Mason said in the press release. “I have been called to this fight for voting rights and will continue to serve my community.”
Contacted by the Observer, a spokesperson for the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office declined to comment because the case remains ongoing.
Along with Mason’s attorney, rights groups including the ACLU of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project had requested that the Court of Criminal Appeals reevaluate Mason’s conviction.
“We believe that ultimately what is right will prevail and will continue to support Ms. Mason as she battles this miscarriage of justice,” Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, said in Wednesday’s release.
Kim T. Cole, Mason’s attorney, said she should have “never been convicted,” adding: “I trust that the court will accurately interpret and apply the law and overturn Crystal’s conviction.”
Mason’s case gained notoriety amid Texas’ clampdown on voting rights. Last year, as Gov. Greg Abbott backed so-called “election integrity” legislation, Texas was criticized by rights groups and voting advocacy organizations around the country."My life has been upended for what was, at worst, an innocent misunderstanding of casting a provisional ballot that was never even counted." - Crystal Mason
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The Brennan Center for Justice says voter fraud is "extremely rare,” but Texas Republicans drummed up claims of widespread voter fraud in the wake of the former President Donald Trump’s electoral loss in November 2020.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, in fact, offered up $1 million in rewards for reports of illegal voting.
Last year, states around the country, among them Texas, passed new laws introducing a slew of voter restrictions.
Mason has previously described regular harassment from neighbors in her mostly white neighborhood in Rendon, a small community near Fort Worth. She says that when she cast her provisional ballot in November 2016, a local poll worker had assured her election officials would later either approve it or declare it ineligible.
“There was a concerted effort on the part of the Republican Party to find and prosecute voter fraud since the 2016 election, when that was [the GOP’s] mantra. And when that didn’t come to fruition, enter Crystal Mason,” her attorney told the Observer last year.
