Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of March 16, 2020.

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

Mason v. State, No. 02-18-00138-CR (Mar. 19, 2020) (Birdwell, J., joined by Kerr and Bassel, JJ.).

Held: The State’s evidence was sufficient to support Appellant’s conviction for illegal voting by casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election when she knew at the time that she was on post-imprisonment supervised release for a federal conviction. Since the 1880s, higher-court authority has construed Election Code Section 64.012(a)(1), the illegal-voting provision under which Appellant was prosecuted, to require only that the defendant know of the existence of the condition making her ineligible to vote, not that voting with that condition violates the law. Additionally, the verb “vote” in Election Code Section 64.012(a)(1) includes the act of casting a provisional ballot even if that ballot is not later counted, and the term “supervision” in Election Code Section 11.002(a)(4)(A), the provision setting forth when a convicted felon regains the right to vote, includes post-imprisonment supervised release imposed as part of the punishment for a federal felony conviction. The federal Help America Vote Act does not preempt a prosecution under Section 64.012(a)(1) for the casting of a provisional ballot.