Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 157 posts

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#131

Post by scarecrowbob »

phonon wrote: post #62
scarecrowbob wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as a white guy in Texas , "not all white Texans" isn't the most helpful response. Regardless of the last name of the judge in this case, your comment more or less meets with my experiences. This conviction is a pretty fucking vile turn of events, and it is fundamentally tied to the racist fears about voter fraud that are, themselves, sublated attempts to prevent "illegitimate" populations from voting: "It's ver…

An aside, can you explain your usage of the word "sublated"? Is that referring to "Aufheben"?[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufheben

Yeah, that's a typo. There are several others... I have my settings set to noprocrast so I should be more careful about editing. Sorry if that led to confusion.

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#132

Post by gnulinux »

pixl97 wrote: post #61
ifdefdebug wrote: post #31

How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?

>How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? They feel ecstatic. They won. The good guys won again, yay! You have a 10oz pot brownie (with a very small amount of mj in it), that's distribution amounts, 30 years in jail for you. Yay! The good guys won again. * I see I have downvoters... Maybe you don't believe me? I've been working around both the prosecution and defense for around 20 years now, have…

I think you have downvoters not because people don't believe you, but because there still are people who believe people you sarcastically ridiculed as "good guys" are actually good guys.

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#133

Post by scarecrowbob »

SilasX wrote: post #100
ifdefdebug wrote: post #31

How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?

I agree that the exact level of punishment may be disproportionate, but where do you get "hurt no one"? An invalid vote cancels a valid one. Is disenfranchisement not a big deal anymore?

Her vote was provisional and removed on review:

"Ultimately, her vote didn’t even count. Provisional ballots are subject to review, which ultimately led to an investigation of Mason."

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#134

Post by gnulinux »

SilasX wrote: post #100
ifdefdebug wrote: post #31

How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?

I agree that the exact level of punishment may be disproportionate, but where do you get "hurt no one"? An invalid vote cancels a valid one. Is disenfranchisement not a big deal anymore?

Why is it "invalid" vote?

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#135

Post by scarecrowbob »

RickJWag wrote: post #128
clintonb wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The final option (provisional ballot) is what happened. The problem is she also signed an affidavit stating that she was eligible. It is a completely victimless crime and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Not victimless. That fraudulent vote cancelled a legitimate one. The punishment is excessive, but there is a real crime here.

Yes victimless: the vote was removed on review.

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#136

Post by grzm »

gnulinux wrote: post #134
SilasX wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the exact level of punishment may be disproportionate, but where do you get "hurt no one"? An invalid vote cancels a valid one. Is disenfranchisement not a big deal anymore?

Why is it "invalid" vote?

Setting aside whether or not the law is a good one (which is also worthy of discussion), in some jurisdictions people convicted of felonies are not allowed to vote. A vote cast by someone who is not allowed to is in that sense invalid.
Post reply on HN