Texas Court Upholds 8-Year Jail Term For Woman Voting Illegally

AUSTIN, TEXAS — The Texas 2nd Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a voter fraud conviction that sent a woman with a sixth-grade education who is mother to four children to eight years in jail for having inadvertently voted illegally.

Attorney General Ken Paxton — who secured reelection during the general election earlier this month — led the charge in getting a conviction for Rosa Maria Ortega, a woman from Mexico brought into the U.S. as an infant who voted for Republican candidates — including Paxton when he first ran for the attorney general's post he currently holds.

During her trial, the woman acknowledged the illegality of her 2012 and 2014 votes in Dallas County, but maintained she never meant to break the law. Her attorney argued some government forms allow applicants to declare permanent residency status, but the voting application in neighboring Tarrant County (to where Ortega subsequently moved) had not such option to check off. Lacking the option, she ticked the "citizen" box.

With that innocent mistake she claims to have made, Ortega's life began to unravel. Exacerbating the rush to convict her was the renewed interest among conservatives to make the fight against voter fraud a top agenda item helping to energize their base, even as numerous studies have shown incidents of voter fraud are statistically negligible and hardly the rampant scourge Republican lawmakers often paint it to be.

Previous story: Amid Pols' Claims Of Rampant Voter Fraud, Mexican Woman Draws 8-Year Prison Sentence In Texas

So sure she was of eventually being found innocent of nothing more than a simple form-filling mistake, Ortega opted for a jury trial — a point Paxton made in a press release announcing the court of appeals decision to uphold the earlier conviction.

"Despite evidence that Ortega had been voting illegally for more than 10 years, the state of Texas offered her the minimum punishment available for the offense – two years community supervision, no prison and no special conditions," Paxton said in a prepared statement. "Instead, she voluntarily chose a jury trial."

Paxton applauded the appeals court's decision to uphold the earlier conviction: "This case underscores the importance that Texans place on the institution of voting, and the hallowed principle that every citizen’s vote must count,” he said. "We will hold those accountable who falsely claim eligibility and purposely subvert the election process in Texas.”

In his statement, Paxton suggested Ortega's claims of having made a simple mistake rather than setting out to commit voter fraud was disingenuous. Yet in his prepared statement, Paxton somehow extrapolated Ortega's own assessment of her actions — acknowledging her resident alien status to officials while later checking off the wrong box on a ballot form — as proof of a nefarious aim.

"At the trial, prosecutors proved that at the same time Ortega falsely claimed to be a U.S. citizen for the purposes of voting, she correctly informed the authorities that she was a resident alien in order to obtain a driver’s license," Paxton asserted in his prepared statement. "That evidence negated Ortega’s claim that she made an innocent mistake."

During Ortega's jury trial, prosecutors provided evidence that Ortega illegally registered to vote in 2002, subsequently voting in four elections within Dallas County. When Ortega moved from Dallas County to Tarrant County in 2014, and correctly indicated she was not a U.S. citizen on her voting registration form, the county informed her in writing that she was ineligible to vote, the attorney general observed: "Nevertheless, Ortega applied to vote again," Paxton said. "This time falsely insisting she was a U.S. citizen. She illegally voted five times between 2004 and 2014."

The case has drawn a broad range of criticism given its harsh sentence, and not just from Democrats or progressives. Conservative pundits, too, have painted the case as overly punitive — particularly given its net effect of throwing a mother of four in the slammer.

"I'm a law & order person and support voter ID," conservative pundit Bill Kristol tweeted about the case. "But this sentence is nuts, & it's unseemly for the Texas governor to be chest-beating about it."

Abbott official photo via State of Texas

Kristol referred to Gov. Greg Abbott (who also secured a second term on Election Day earlier this month), who joined Paxton in celebrating the woman's conviction: "In Texas, you will pay a price for voter fraud," he wrote in a tweet that as accompanied by a Fox News article on the case, referring to the woman at the center on the case not by her name but as a "noncitizen" [sic].

It might be the backlash to such partisan celebration — bemoaned by even those in their own political party — that explains Paxton's more softened tones on Tuesday in describing the woman's plight, albeit while still applauding the conviction.

"After proving their case, the prosecutors did not recommend a specific term of prison time for Ortega, but instead left her sentence in the hands of the jury," Paxton said. "The judge instructed it that the sentencing range for the type of offense Ortega committed — a second-degree felony — spanned from two to 20 years, or up to 10 years of probation. The court also read the standard jury instruction advising that early release through parole was available."

What's more, Paxton added in vaguely conciliatory terms, Ortega might not have to serve her entire jail term after all: "Although Ortega was sentenced to eight years in jail for voting illegally, she is eligible — under Texas parole law for this type of offense — to receive good time, work credits and bonus time, making her potentially eligible for parole in less than 12 months."

Yet at the time Ortega was harshly sentenced, Paxton applauded the move without such qualifications while mining it for political currency: "This case shows how serious Texas is about keeping its elections secure, and the outcome sends a message that violators of the state's election law will be prosecuted to the fullest."

Get Patch's Daily Newsletters and Real Time Alerts

>>> Top photo of Ken Paxton via State of Texas