The Texas Democrat's campaign ad blames Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton for Crystal Mason's five-year sentence, but local prosecutors brought the case years before her conviction was overturned. The dispute highlights broader concerns about voter fraud enforcement and racial disparities in Texas.
One of the closing ads from Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race says that Crystal Mason received a five-year prison sentence for illegal voting “because of Ken Paxton’s crackdown on voters of color.” But there’s more to the story.
Although her vote ultimately did not count, Mason, a Black Texas resident, was convicted and sentenced by a state judge in March 2018 for illegally casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 general election. At the time, she was on supervised release following a felony conviction for tax fraud in 2011. That made her ineligible to vote under state law.
However, the case against Mason, who was charged in February 2017, was investigated and prosecuted by the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office — not Paxton’s office, as the ad may suggest to viewers. The judge didn’t provide an explanation for the five-year sentence.
The penalty for illegally voting in Texas, a second-degree felony, was up to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Attempting to vote illegally, a different charge, is a state jail felony, punishable by up to two years in state jail.
