A Texas woman who was sentenced to five years in prison in March for casting a ballot in the 2016 presidential election while ineligible to vote has been denied a new trial.
Crystal Mason, a 43-year-old tax fraud convict from Rendon, Texas, voted in the 2016 election while on supervised release – unaware that she was ineligible under a state law that says felons are only allowed to vote after they have fully completed their sentence.
Mason was slapped with a hefty five-year prison sentence in March of this year, and on Monday the same judge denied her request for a new trial.
The mother-of-two says she plans to challenge the decision.
Crystal Mason, a 43-year-old tax fraud convict who was sentenced to five years in prison in March for voting illegally in the 2016 presidential election, was denied a retrial on Monday
![The mother-of-two says she plans to appeal the judge's decision, arguing that the law is unclear and the sentence unnecessarily harsh. She is pictured in court in Fort Worth in May](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/18/00/4D2B502600000578-5854629-image-a-2_1529277064130.jpg)
The mother-of-two says she plans to appeal the judge’s decision, arguing that the law is unclear and the sentence unnecessarily harsh. She is pictured in court in Fort Worth in May
‘Right now, I’m very overwhelmed with all this. Everything is a shock, you know? Everything,’ Mason told CBS this week.
Mason, a tax preparer, pleaded guilty to tax fraud in 2011 and was sentenced to five years in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Shortly after she was released from prison in 2016, her mother convinced her to go vote in the presidential election – a decision that she now regrets.
‘I’m wishing that I never voted. That’s how I’m wishing. I’m wishing that I never ever went up there to vote.’
At the polling place Mason was required to sign an affidavit which lists requirements for voting, including that convicted felons can have their voting privileges restored after fully completing their sentences.
Mason said she didn’t thoroughly read the affidavit because the election worker had been helping her fill the form out.
Election workers soon discovered that she was a convicted felon and she was arrested in February for voter fraud.
![Mason claims she was unaware that she was ineligible to vote under a Texas law that says felons cannot vote until they have fully completed their sentence](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/18/00/4D5B143400000578-5854629-image-a-7_1529277253426.jpg)
![Mason claims she was unaware that she was ineligible to vote under a Texas law that says felons cannot vote until they have fully completed their sentence](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/06/18/00/4D5B142D00000578-5854629-image-m-6_1529277243744.jpg)
Mason claims she was unaware that she was ineligible to vote under a Texas law that says felons cannot vote until they have fully completed their sentence
During her trial testimony, Mason said that no one had told her she had to wait until her supervised release was over before she could vote.
‘She was never told that she couldn’t vote, and she voted in good faith,’ Mason’s lawyer J Warren St John said in court.
‘Why would she risk going back to prison for something that is not going to change her life?’
Judge Ruben Gonzalez handed down a five-year prison sentence in March and denied Mason’s request for a retrial this week.
She is now planning to file an appeal.
‘One of the things that we are going to complain to the appellate court is that this law really isn’t clear,’ Mason’s defense attorney Alison Grinter said after the request for a retrial was denied.
Mason’s defense team also says that the sentence is far too strict, citing a similar case in Iowa in which a woman was only sentenced to two years on probation.
![District Judge Ruben Gonzalez, the same judge who sentenced Mason to five years in March, denied her request for a retrial on Monday](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/03/29/21/4AACB27000000578-0-image-a-88_1522354189267.jpg)
District Judge Ruben Gonzalez, the same judge who sentenced Mason to five years in March, denied her request for a retrial on Monday