Overview
- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed the state’s petition in a 5-4 vote on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, leaving the Second Court of Appeals’ 2024 judgment of acquittal intact and effectively vacating Mason’s 2018 conviction.
- Mason was convicted in 2018 after casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election that was later rejected; she received a five‑year sentence and spent months back in federal custody because the state conviction violated her supervised release.
- The central legal question was the defendant’s mental state and in 2022 the Court of Criminal Appeals required prosecutors to prove a defendant ‘actually realized’ that supervised release made them ineligible to vote.
- Texas lawmakers later changed the illegal‑voting statute to require evidence beyond a provisional‑ballot affidavit signature for proof of knowing illegality, and courts applied that change to cases that were not final, including Mason’s.
- Four judges filed dissents saying the evidence was sufficient and the Tarrant County district attorney defended the prosecution, while Mason and civil‑rights groups said the ruling ends her nearly decade‑long fight and could curb prosecutions based chiefly on affidavit signatures.