Crystal Mason’s illegal voting conviction has been left overturned after Texas’s highest criminal court dismissed prosecutors’ appeal, bringing a nearly decade-long legal battle to an end.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled on Thursday, 24 September 2026, that it had accepted the state’s challenge by mistake. The decision was 5-4, with four judges dissenting.
Mason, a Fort Worth mother of three, was convicted in 2018 after casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 presidential election while on supervised release for felony tax fraud. The ballot was never counted.
She maintained that she did not know she was barred from voting and said no one had explained that her legal status made her ineligible. Mason was sentenced to five years in prison.
Crystal Mason’s conviction overturned
In March 2024, the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth overturned the conviction, ruling that prosecutors had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Mason knew she was not permitted to vote.
The state then asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to reinstate the conviction. The court agreed to review the case but has now dismissed the appeal without deciding whether the lower court’s assessment of the evidence was legally correct.
Mason said she was relieved that the case was over and hoped her experience would encourage people to participate in elections.
“This was never simply about one provisional ballot. This was about whether our justice system would allow a woman to lose five years of her freedom when the ballot at the centre of the prosecution was never even counted,” said Minister Dominique Alexander, president and chief executive of the Next Generation Action Network.
He said Mason’s case showed why people should continue to challenge what they believe to be unjust, even when the legal process is lengthy.
Justice Gina Parker, writing in dissent, said the ruling weakened Texas’s ability to enforce its election laws. She argued that it allowed what she described as an illegal vote to go unpunished and could make future prosecutions more difficult.
Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells said voters should be able to trust the electoral system, while insisting that illegal voting remained a crime in Texas.
“If there is evidence that someone knowingly violates our election laws in Tarrant County, we will investigate it and, when the evidence supports it, prosecute it,” he said.
