Same Elections, Different Americas
Donald Trump will likely get away with massive election fraud. Crystal Mason got five years for one vote.
On Election Day in 2016, Crystal Mason, a Black mother of three, had been out of prison for nearly a year and was committed to getting her life back on track. She had a full-time job at a local bank and was putting herself through beauty school. She wanted to be an example to her children, especially in showing them that our mistakes don’t have to define us.
Mason had been charged with tax fraud in 2012 and done her time, being let out in late 2015 on supervised release. She was doing what needed to be done to fully complete her sentence, what we are told by officials “rehabilitation” should mean for convicted felons: a good faith effort to reintegrate into society and fly right.
After work, she went to her polling place in Tarrant County, Texas and was surprised to learn that her name was missing from the rolls. She asked the poll worker for help—as we are all told to do if we’re confused or have questions about the process for voting—and she was advised to use a provisional ballot, which would only count if her credentials were verified.
On the ballot was a disclaimer in the fine print warning those with a felony conviction on supervised release that they could not vote until their sentence (prison time, parole, and probation) is fully completed. Texas is one of nineteen states with such a restriction.
(Let me stop here for a second: if you’re already angry and confused as to why anyone not incarcerated would be barred from voting, check out this stunning report from The Sentencing Project.)
Mason didn’t see the fine print because she took the poll worker’s guidance to heart, which, again, is what we’re all advised to do (and honestly, whom among us actually reads the fine print on our ballots).
That December, she learned her ballot had been rejected, and a few months after that, she was charged with voting illegally.
Not only did Mason’s vote not count, but her provisional ballot was one of 4,500 rejected in Tarrant County that year. Mason was the only person prosecuted, the first such known criminal conviction, according to her lawyer.
She admitted her guilt, waived the right to a jury trial, and offered contrition for what had clearly been a good faith mistake in casting a vote that didn’t count after being advised to do so by an election worker.
Under Texas law, the presiding judge could have sentenced her to between 2 and 20 years of incarceration or probation, which is absurd enough alone. He handed down five years in prison. For that single vote.
A state appellate court upheld her conviction and sentencing.
Currently, her lawyers, partnered with the ACLU and other civil rights orgs, have a pending review before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest authority for criminal cases. The world awaits their ruling.
On Sunday evening, Amy Gardner of The Washington Post published an extraordinary hour-long phone conversation in which Donald Trump—with several of his advisors also on the line—repeatedly badgered, threatened, and pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to essentially overturn the results showing Joe Biden had won the state in November’s election.
The money quote in that conversation is particularly jarring:
“So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
In case you needed the confirmation here, Trump clearly broke federal law, egregiously so and on a verified recording. There’s nothing out-of-context. Not only did he request what amounts to election tampering by a state official but threatened that official with consequences of “criminal liability” if Raffensperger failed to do so.
According to federal law, what Trump did, if here were convicted, would be met with up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
Keep in mind that this is the one call of which we’re aware, and even if overturned, the results out of Georgia wouldn’t be enough to overturn Biden’s victory in the Electoral College. He would need other states overturned.
So, ask yourself: what’s the likelihood that there have been many other phone conversations like this between Trump and election officials of other states? My bet—and I think yours, too—is that it’s pretty damn likely.
No, Trump will not be successful in his efforts, and yet, the damage that’s already been done since Election Day is incalculable. Even before today’s scoop by Amy Gardner, Trump’s bid to undermine and overturn the election results—despite zero evidence of fraud and other malfeasance—has put cowardly members of his own party in an astonishing public bind, in which they find themselves having to pretend Trump is being cheated in order to preserve their own careers with his base.
Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and their fellow Republican Senate conspiracists are engaging in this embarrassing and destructive political theater on Jan. 6th because it’s what they believe will preserve their viability for the Republican Party’s nomination in 2024 and/or their careers in the Senate.
Much of the conservative movement, in general, has fallen in line with this messaging, and it’s been effective with their base.
Despite the clear evidence, which would be more than enough to convict anyone else who had clearly tried to overturn a presidential election result, Trump will likely not face conviction. I hope I’m wrong. But given the country’s political volatility and how Trump has managed to convince his base that the election’s been stolen, the argument from some would be that convicting Trump would likely enable that narrative.
I don’t agree with that, of course. Quite the opposite. He needs to be charged and held accountable, if only to show that efforts by government officials to tamper with election results will be met with the full force of the law.
But will it happen? Probably not. In this country, people like Crystal Mason, overwhelmingly Black and Brown people, bear the consequences for the collective sins of white political leaders. They are the convenient examples to show “the law works”, even as cowards like Trump get away with a horrific subversion of our democratic processes and outright treason.
Meanwhile, tragically, President-elect Biden would not have the power to pardon Crystal Mason for state criminal charges, only federal offenses.
Keep her and her family in your thoughts.
Hi, I’m Charlotte Clymer, and this is my Substack. It’s completely free to access and read, but if you feel so moved to support my writing, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription: just $7/month or save money with the $70/annual sub. You can also go way above and beyond by becoming a Founding Member at $210.
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