In 2016, Crystal Mason didn’t know that being on parole meant she couldn’t. Unsure, poll workers gave Mason a provisional ballot. Her parole officer testified that no one told Mason not to vote. But Mason was sentenced to five years in prison over a vote that wasn’t even counted. In March 2024, her conviction was thrown out. But the push for a crackdown on “illegal voting” recently brought a dismaying update - continuing an anti-Black legacy of voter intimidation and suppression.
Texas District Attorney Phil Sorrells decided to appeal Mason’s freedom, pushing for the state’s highest criminal court to reconsider her case. Sorrells is determined to make Mason an example for all “would-be illegal voters.”
This isn’t new. Last year, Marsha Ervin was arrested for voter fraud after Florida had allowed her to vote for years. This year, Atlanta officials invalidated signatories of the Cop City ballot referendum petition, punishing them by making the names of people who oppose Cop City public.
Historically, voter fraud and voter suppression have gone hand in hand, with white officials cheating by stuffing ballot boxes to legalizing suppression with poll taxes, literacy tests, and the disenfranchisement of Black incarcerated people.
The real voter fraud is that legally and illegally, this country has fraudulently worked to keep the vote white.