Crystal Mason, middle, on the Tim Curry Justice Center in Fort Worth, Texas, on May 25, 2018.

Max Faulkner/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service by way of Getty Images

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Max Faulkner/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service by way of Getty Images

Crystal Mason, middle, on the Tim Curry Justice Center in Fort Worth, Texas, on May 25, 2018.

Max Faulkner/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tribune News Service by way of Getty Images

AUSTIN — A state appellate courtroom in Fort Worth, Texas, has acquitted Crystal Mason of an unlawful voting conviction that might have required her to serve a five-year jail sentence.

Judge Wade Birdwell wrote in his ruling that the state didn’t have sufficient proof to show that Mason knew she was ineligible to vote when she forged a poll within the 2016 election.

In a press release, the ACLU of Texas mentioned this acquittal quantities to a “victory for Mason, a Black grandmother from Fort Worth, whose life was upended by the state’s aggressive charges.”

“I am overjoyed to see my faith rewarded today,” Mason mentioned in a press release. “I was thrown into this fight for voting rights and will keep swinging to ensure no one else has to face what I’ve endured for over six years, a political ploy where minority voting rights are under attack.”

Mason’s case has garnered important media consideration prior to now a number of years. Voting rights advocates have warned that the state’s ongoing “crackdown” on alleged unlawful voting would inevitably ensnare voters who merely make errors whereas voting. The state’s election policing efforts have been led by the state’s Republican lawyer common, Ken Paxton, who has been embroiled in his personal authorized troubles all through his total time in workplace.

In Mason’s case, she was on supervised launch from jail after serving time on federal tax evasion fees when she voted within the 2016 election, on the urging of relations.

Mason has maintained that she had no thought she could not vote as a result of she technically hadn’t completed her sentence. She has mentioned that she thought she was eligible as soon as she was launched from jail. And as a result of Mason wasn’t on the voter rolls on the time, she voted utilizing a provisional poll — which finally wasn’t even counted.

Alison Grinter Allen, a felony protection lawyer who represented Mason, mentioned her conviction “should never have happened.”

“Crystal and her family have suffered for over six years as the target of a vanity project by Texas political leaders,” she mentioned. “We’re happy that the court saw this for the perversion of justice that it is, but the harm that this political prosecution has done to shake Americans’ confidence in their own franchise is incalculable.”