Reuters
Crystal Mason was convicted of illegally voting two years after that election by a trial court, which ruled that she tried to cast a provisional ballot despite being on supervised release from prison for a felony and therefore ineligible to vote. The Texas Second Court of Criminal Appeals upheld that conviction in 2020, but two years later, the state's highest criminal court ruled that the appeals court had failed to require proof that Mason knew it was a crime for her to vote under those circumstances. The appeals court's reversal of Mason's conviction on Thursday, after finding that prosecutors had indeed not sufficiently proven she knew her act was illegal, was hailed by voting rights advocates as a major victory in one of the U.S. states with the most restrictive voting laws.