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Politics

Crystal Mason's voting case finally ends as Texas high court lets her acquittal stand

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the state's petition for review, leaving Crystal Mason's illegal-voting acquittal in place after a nearly decade-long legal battle.

By Priya Raman · · 1 min read

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has ended the long-running case against Crystal Mason, the woman sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot while ineligible to vote. The court dismissed the state’s petition for review as improvidently granted, letting stand a lower court’s ruling that acquitted her.

The Second Court of Appeals had vacated Mason’s conviction, finding insufficient evidence that she knew she was ineligible to vote. Her legal team — the ACLU of Texas, the national ACLU, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and attorneys Alison Grinter and Kim T. Cole — called the decision the end of a nearly decade-long battle.

Mason, a Black mother of three from Fort Worth, was convicted in 2018 of illegal voting after submitting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election that was never counted. She was on federal supervised release following a tax-fraud conviction and maintained she did not know the state considered her ineligible.

“In all these years, I never lost my faith that justice would be done,” Mason said. “I am so happy my nightmare is over and I can move on. I hope people who hear my story are encouraged to make their voices heard and to get out and vote. If the right to vote weren’t so important, they wouldn’t be trying to take it away.”

Mason founded the nonprofit Crystal Mason The Fight in 2021 to advocate for voter education and registration.

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