That's a pretty damn racist comment. I'm sure it is not every white Texan, and I am sure it is not only white Texan's but also Texan's of other races.
Is the relevant group predominantly white? Yes, probably. That doesn't make it acceptable to paint all white people with that brush. Imagine if I made a similar comment about black people and shootings.
The difference is power. Denigrating a politically weak group like black people is just bullying. Denigrating the dominant group is standing up to power.
Sure, which is why denigrating black people in media and corporate setting is completely acceptable, while denigrating whites is shunned and can easily get you fired. Oh wait, I meant the other way around.
Not blind, but to make a really stark example, there's a difference between mocking someone when you have a gun to their head, and mocking someone who has a gun to your head. The former is just adding insult to injury, the latter is stupid but a little brave at the same time.
In the former example you have so much power that whatever cause you had to denigrate them no longer matters to you, but that is neither the common case nor principled.
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 very much about voter intimidation: “I don’t think I’ll ever vote again,” she told the news outlet after her indictment. “That’s being honest. I’ll never vote again.”"
The vast majority of folks in Texas are, IMO, racist, and often in ways that they don't understand. Like, they are often not Klan members. But they do often think that "hispanics" are simultaneous "lazy" and willing to out work them to "take their jobs". This conviction is yet another example of that kind of bigotry... it just seems like a natural, common sense kind of thing to the racists in Texas (note that I didn't say all Texans, thanks).
These are common ideas here among the white folks, who largely are the folks who have the political power to make crazy, fantasy-based laws about voting practices and then equal power to create and enforce these laws. This woman is basically a sacrifice on the alter to reifying those fantasies about voter fraud.
And the people here are indeed very much about retributive, rather than restorative or transformative justice. So on that account, yes, you're totally right: this conviction is 100% about the happy reification of a fantasy that people are out to commit fraud.
This lady is basically a sacrifice to that fantasy:
“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,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said after Ortega was sentenced. ”
So fuck Ken Paxton, and fuck anybody who thinks that this is a reasonable kind of thing.
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.
Yep, that's exactly what a private prison system leads to. You can see the system working as intended here. 5 years is... just ridiculous. There's no words for this kind of injustice.
Prison guard unions and private prisons are effectively the same thing. They are both groups that directly benefit by increasing the prison population.
>>Private prisons have basically nothing to do with this.
Incorrect. Private prisons have lobbyists that contaminate the system further upstream to ensure a steady supply of inmates. They do this by lobbying legislators for harsher prison sentences on trivial crimes.
While I am completely opposed to the quasi not really private prisons (they should not be called Private, a Private company has competition, these corporations are Government Contractors)
The idea their lobbying efforts have had any effect on punishment guidelines is laughable.
1. The Public in General Votes for "Tough on Crime" politicians, the Public wants "criminal" to pay, they are just to ignorant to understand who "criminals" are as they picture the person is a ski mask robbing and raping them, not some person filling out a government form incorrectly
2. The Police Unions, Guard unions, and various other Non-Profit Groups lobby far far far more effectively than any of the For-profit Government Contractors for very very harsh punishments, and for the creation of new laws and regulations to make even more criminals every year.
I find five years a bit surprising, but what do you think the proper penalty would be for a felon committing voter fraud should be?
Edit: I'm utterly amazed that this comment has been downvoted to silence. Disenfranchising felons — i.e., those who have committed extremely serious crimes — is while somewhat controversial a long-standing practice. The woman in question committed voter fraud by voting without being legally permitted to. This raises some questions. Are felons seriously not told they may not vote? Why not? Is five years a reasonable sentence (I don't really think so in this case, but for someone who commits large-scale voter fraud it might be)? Certainly the woman seems hard-done-by. At the end of the day, though, she did commit a crime under the laws of the state, and while the sentence seems harsh some sentence is necessary.
If you come from a country (like most European countries) where people are allowed to vote both on probation, and also in prison, then the whole act of voting wouldn't even be a fraud in your home country. But different countries have different practices on what is a crime.
I would prefer 0 days in prison because I don't think voting while a felon should be a crime. But, if we still want to call this situation voter fraud, how about we sentence them to community service? This person is not a danger to society, so I see no reason to put them in prison. More prion just messes up their life further and costs everybody a lot of precious tax dollars.
While I agree that what this woman did shouldn't be voter fraud, community service isn't sufficient deterrent for actual voter fraud. People put in lots of volunteer hours to help get their preferred candidate elected, so they'd probably be willing to risk community service too. Voter fraud is very dangerous to society, as society depends on our trust in institutions.
What's widespread mean? I bet more people drive drunk than are tempted to vote illegally. The penalty for first time intoxicated driving is often just a fine.
The max jail time in Texas for first time DWI is 180 days (or as little as 3 days).
In-person voter fraud is vanishingly rare (0.0003 percent to 0.0025 percent, according to a recent meta-analysis[1]). A severe penalty in this sort of case serves no meaningful deterrent function.
I agree that we don't need any new measures against voter fraud, but I don't see how it follows that existing voter fraud laws need to be removed or not enforced. Do you have any evidence of what the effect would be if the punishment for voter fraud were community service?
She voted in a way that was contrary to the law, but it was (likely) a mistake rather than fraud.
In any case, the penalty should be something like losing the right to vote in a single future election, especially lacking any evidence of an organized scheme to corrupt an election.
Because she wasn't legally allowed to vote, and she did. That's voter fraud.
I'm fine with forbidding felons to vote, and of course any law forbidding something has to have penalties. I'm very surprised that the penalty in this case was so high and that it appears to have been a strict-liability crime. Honestly, six months or even less for a first offense would seem reasonable to me — but I'm not a judge.
The US criminal system isn't meant to rehabilitate, and a corrections officer told me that directly once (after I asked for a Bible and he said no).
It's only meant to provide the public with a false sense of security. "Another scumbag has been locked up, key's been thrown away, you're all safe once again. Enjoy the rest of your evening."
But it's okay because people are easily forgettable. If you have 100 people on a block, and 1 is taken away unjustly, you still have 99 who can quickly forget about that 1, provided they're distracted with enough beer, books, movies and memes.
I don’t think it was intentionally designed, but I believe the criminal justice system is best described as handing out draconian sentences to the unlucky few actually caught committing crimes. I’m convinced there are better approaches ( https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-26/plea-barg... ).
I think the law she is guilty of far pre-dates the corruption of the system. I do agree that parts of are prison system have very corrupt parts, but this is a much older law.
> Not even having a "probation" time after people have been released from prison; they did their time, they are free again
I think you're mistaken about what probation is.
Probation is part of your time. You're sentenced for a given period of time, and at some point you may be released to serve the rest of that time in the community, on probation.
Their sentence isn't over, and they aren't 'free' while they are on probation. It's part of the original sentence still.
Probation allows people to serve part of their sentences back in the community when they are safe to do so. If you're arguing against having probation you're arguing for longer time spent in prison.
Many people feel that probation is inherently unethical. X years of probation seems less harsh than X years in prison but often amount to the same thing.
Without the option of probation prison time is not going to increase 1:1 and depending on the ratio total time in prison may actually decrease.
When you're on reporting probation you essentially lose all of your rights. The rules are incredibly strict and your probation officer can come find you any time of day. If they call you and you don't answer the phone that can be considered a violation of your probation. Straight to jail. They can come in your house and search 24/7. They can send you to jail indefinitely for any reason or no reason at all.
Body cavity search any time they want.
Speeding ticket? Straight to jail.
Late to work? Straight to jail.
Outside of your house after 10pm? Straight to jail.
Didn't go to enough AA meetings this week? Straight to jail.
Not able to pay court fines? Jail.
Left city limits without permission? Guess what.
Attempt to vote? Five fucking years!
I think you're mistaken about how probation is used in practice.
Many small offenses will get you put on probation for ten years.
Parole and work release are more often used as alternatives to incarceration.
The main issue here is whether or not people on probation should be allowed to vote. I don't see why they shouldn't and I can't see any justification for putting them in jail if they do. It's absolutely absurd.
The US frames prison as primarily revenge, it's about taking things away from "bad" people. Take away their nice things, destroy their family, make sure they'll never get a decent job and so on.
The EU (and most modern actual thinking on the issue) says prison primarily lets us force convicts to reform, we can impose structure in their lives, show them how to be good - and in the worst case we keep them there if they refuse to reform.
The British government fought and lost a legal battle to retain the status where prisoners can't legally vote (and many people who are in jail but aren't convicted of any crime don't end up being able to vote even though it's legal). The EU said that's not OK. You can target criminals who e.g. are in prison for vote tampering, but you can't take away people's vote just because they're in prison since they're still citizens.
Yes, but it's a part that is substantially different from imprisonment: you are given a chance to prove yourself (Latin probo, probatio, French prover) to society. It should be as close to the life of a virtuos citizen as possible - and exerting a right to vote, far from being a personal gain, is exactly the type of pro-social behavior we should encourage.
I can understand why she should be reprimanded for violating her probation, but it's revolting that voting during probation could be considered a violation. Something is seriously wrong in a society that does that.
Probation is a "probationary" period that prevents you from going to prison, by substituting it with a period of time where you do classes, have a job, go to school, and/or community service also.
Parole is a period of time after you are released from prison where you are still technically a "prisoner" but you are being let loose to see if you do well in society for a little while, but with extremely high restrictions that can put you back if you sneeze wrong. The federal prison system no longer supports federal parolees.
In my state, Arizona, if you wait 2 years after you are "off paper" (completed parole/probation) you can have your rights restored so you can vote (this is for state felonies, not for federal felonies as far as I know). You can also have your record "sealed" where it still shows you are a felon, but as long as you didn't do anything dangerous(violent) or sexual in nature you can have the court hide what you did. This works out for people that performed financial crimes and are having a hard time getting a job as a cashier or anything to do with money. Or a person who stole a car and is trying to get hired as a driver.
Is corruption really a new phenomenon? Or, are we romanticizing history?
I’m not an expert and I wasn’t there so I don’t know what the actual answer is. With just a cursory knowledge of history though, I don’t think the corruption of this or any system of control is very new at all.
I think Americans by and large see prison as this dungeon where we store people we don’t like for as long as possible rather than as a place where people who have made mistakes go to get the training and help they need in order to get back on track. That’s the simplest way to explain things like ultra long sentences compared to the rest of the civilized world, mistreating people after they’ve done their time (felon status for life and offender lists), and the extreme racial disparity among the prison population. It’s a system designed to permanently bifurcate the population into “normals” and “criminals”, often along racial lines, and to by any means keep the second group segregated for as long as possible, as often as possible.
If I murdered someone out of curiosity and in doing so realized it was not fun at all should I be allowed to go free immediately since I will not murder again?
In other words the rehabilitation occurred during and as a result of the criminal act.
There's also 'fairness' in law - so you have to serve a sentence similar to others guilty of the same offense. And yes in this strawman case your sentence should perhaps not be a long one.
Except the sociopath angle - a person who commits crime for fun is quite likely to find another fun crime to commit.
Retribution is inherent to punishment and by extension justice. It simply makes no sense to claim otherwise. Mercy makes no sense unless we accept that. A judge cannot show leniency or mercy unless it is, first, acknowledged that the criminal deserves something commensurate with the crime, and second, there is a real, deserved possibility (at least in principle, even if never realized) of receiving one's just deserts. Premeditated murder deserves the death penalty as a matter of principle, though we can decide legally never to manifest that as punishment.
Punishment has three purposes: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. We seem to be suffering from a contemporary bias against retribution [0]. However, these three purposes are intimately connected. When a punishment fits the crime, we communicate the severity of the crime to the criminal. In that way, we help facilitate rehabilitation by making it clear how grave his offense has been. Deterrence is facilitated by the same token. Obviously, these are not absolute measures. For example, a criminal may be unrepentant, but then rehabilitation is not possible. In any case, adequate remorse does not remove the possibility of retribution (though a sincerely remorseful criminal would accept that he deserves commensurate punishment), but it does allow for mercy.
[0] A common confusion here is that retribution entails hatred of the punished. It does not.
Yes, but in America, a hatred of the punished is common regardless of whether you tie that to "retribution", and likely one of the many reasons rehabilitation is not a focus and/or strong outcome of our prison system.
And even if they do rehabilitate, our society is not properly set up to help them come back, so the retribution often outweighs the crime. They do their time in prison- but essentially they do time the rest of their life, because when they come back, they aren't treated as if their retribution is complete.
Calling crimes "mistakes" is a terrible euphemism.
It may be accurate in some cases. But many criminals commit their crimes knowing full well what they are doing, and with no regard for those who are hurt by their actions, and show little or no remorse (unless they think pretending can reduce their sentence).
Now, many are in prison due to unjust laws, selective enforcement, or a flawed prosecution incarcerating the wrong person. But let's not lump those problems together with those who intentionally harm others without remorse.
OK, while I get the sentiment, this story is about a crime that was a mistake.
I think many of us are aware that felons loose their right to vote. I guess I assumed you would be blocked from voting. So I never thought about what the penalty should be. Now that I’ve seen the penalty, I’m appalled.
Frankly, I think we should quit criminalizing everything. The governments responsible for jailing criminals, no-fly lists and a lot of other things. Why not take responsibility for blocking felons from voting?
I posted about my situation and difficulty finding a job on another social media website, and a commenter wrote "Those lists exist for a reason. You made your bed now sleep in it." That's literally what the public thinks they're for, as a permanent form of discrimination and condemnation to prevent people like me from having a job or a good life. It's meant to keep us down all our lives.
If that's what the voting public thinks it's for, then for all practical purposes, that's sure as hell what it's actually for.
Wow that is fucked up, and yet sadly I think state side HN readers will rage more about the use of "loaded" words like blacklist, whitelist, slave database, dog balls (for javascript brackets) and so on before focusing on real problems - but where is the fun in that.
There's a good documentary about Texas throwing kids in the jail for trivial crimes for multiple years that highlights how retarded the system is (beyond this case), can't find title at the moment grr..
What a disgusting story. How come the State is so vindictive towards the weak and so powerless against people who starts unjustified wars or brings down the financial system ?
Their hope is that maybe they'll be able to change the future for the better by making an example of someone, even if they have to be excessive, cruel, or unjust toward that person. They're justifying the means by the hoped end.
A more prosaic and more likely explanation is that states controlled by the Republican party seek to suppress black voting by any means possible because it's a threat to their hold on power.
First, the vast majority of states have some type of voting restrictions on felons, with Maine and Vermont being the only exceptions.
Second, some states historically and modernly controlled by the Republican party (e.g. Montana) return the right to vote after release.
Third, among states with harsher restrictions (ending after parole or probation) that are historically OR modernly Republican controlled (ignoring the first point-that many such states are Democrat controlled), the demographics are, in many cases, such that all other races combined could not muster even the perception of a threat to the white, Republican voting bloc.
Tossing her in prison for 5 years as part of a "crackdown" on voter fraud in an effort to prove it is a problem, and then disenfranchise as a "correction", is a pure republican move.
Disenfranchisement can be achieved on a greater scale if you make an example of people. If you take one person and throw them in jail for voting, you get a classic chilling effect.
This is likely a very old law, or old sentence. I wonder if more of our school system could be focused on teaching people every single law that could screw them over.
We learn the rules of math, science, etc, but not our own system?
Next time someone crosses the street outside the crosswalk and gets 5 years, please quote this again. That's more intentional than what this lady did by mistake casting a provisional ballot. Proportionality is a core principle, you don't whip out the harshest possible punishment just because you can.
In this case, they should have simply discarded her ballot and informed her of her status. Of course, disenfranchising any citizen, even convicted felons, is completely unjust, so I would argue they shouldn't have even done that.
She didn't get 5 years because she did this act by itself, she got it for doing it while on probation. Also J walking is an infraction and this isn't. Pretty big difference in the severity of the crime, potentially altering the outcome of an election is far worse than j walking. Granted her vote alone wouldn't do that, but its a matter of principle, if you let one person get away with it then it adds up.
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?
You're thinking under the assumption that there's no corruption in the judicial system, and also that every judge and jury and attorney intend to act for the good of every individual person, rather than for some other agenda. That's the kind of naivety I had too. That's not how the world works. The world is a horrifyingly evil place.
voting while black. Or poor. Rephrasing that old saying - steal a vote and you get 5 years in prison, steal an election and you get to be the President.
>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 many family members that work for law enforcement and judges. This is exactly how many of them think.
Even from the outside this is obviously true. They consider themselves the good guys by definition, because they see themselves as representing justice, as defined by the criminal code. A noble calling. Once you accept that, pure job performance (convictions) becomes an easy metric. The thought of ruining some individual's (or family's) life over recreational amounts of pot is either justified or compartmented away. Or like aaronsw...once the prosecutors are on it, there's no more question of proportion or actual justice, it's a matter of looking for the conviction.
Edit: I want to amend this a bit. It is something of a noble calling. In a better world, the executive legal function could depend a lot more on legislative and judicial functions to produce a criminal code that served justice better, and just worry about prosecuting what they can according to the law. But in so many cases now, the law is an ass.
There was a story a month or 2 back about some guy who pissed off a local sheriff.
They raided his house and found that he made pot butter. They tried to charge him based on the weight of the butter. So his small amount of weed suddenly became a pound and he was facing ridiculous jail time.
But yeah, this judge is probably quite happy to be guarding the integrity of the voting system by tossing a woman who did nothing wrong into jail for 5 fucking years. What a piece of shit.
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.
For me, it's impossible to respect these professions (prosecutor, police, and to a major extent, judges) or any of the people in it. They throw around words like "justice" and "fair" without having a single clue as to what they mean. Maybe one day, they'll be the ones on the other side of the bars for the cruelty and harm they've caused to society. This kind of simple minded "good vs. bad" thinking or "I'm just doing my job" thinking has no place in any legal system and certainly not in any justice system. [Insert comparison to Nazis "just doing their job" here because after all, we have a few million people locked up, most of them for no reason.]
I would assume that if they had doubts about the job they would change careers. So I would guess that either they feel like she’s an unfortunate victim of an imperfect system that works correctly in other cases, or that she must be guilty of something else but that something else was never discovered.
Currently there is a lawsuit to overturn life sentences for juvenile offenders. One of the leaders in that movement is a judge who gave a teenage murderer a life sentence with the comment “I feel the same thing you felt for your victims: nothing.” She doesn’t admit to having changed her mind on harsh punishment in general, but based her change of heart on new scientific beliefs about how morally developed teenagers are.
This is probably the least serious vote fraud imaginable. It's not at all obvious that depriving any citizen the right to vote is ethical or constitutional.
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?
Right, I can understand arguments for "you shouldn't lose the vote in that case", but that's a separate issue from "given that her vote wasn't valid, she was disenfranchising someone".
And "no franchise" does not imply "not human", unless you're saying that every country should allow foreigners to vote in their election or else they're deeming them non-human.
It's not a word game; it's progressed into forcing the OP into clarifying why disenfranchisement can be such an atrocity but not "hurting" in any relevant sense, or (if I understand you) why all non-physical crimes should have some really low cap on punishment. Seems like progress to me, and unlike a word game.
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.
And I'm only half joking here. There's a similar case where a white woman purposely tried to impersonate her mother so that she could vote for Trump twice, and she was not charged.
I never quite understood voter disenfranchisement.
Some quick googling tells me that 6 million people are disenfranchised in the US, which out of 235 million voting-aged population means 2.5% of the US voting-aged population is disenfranchised.
It is also majority targeted towards black voters (despite 18% of voting population, 34% of disenfranchised are black)
Putting it together for me it's clear that police brutality, redistricting and rigid voter disenfranchisement all serve the same purpose. To disenfranchise black voters to the maximum extent possible while remaining constitutional.
This should become a supreme court matter someday.
You make a lot of leaps and assumptions in whatever logic you're using to jump from "isn't allowed to vote b/c of probation" to "omg blacks are targeted for harassment".
Man the US just disgust me. Land of the free my ass. The amount of inhumane policies is just staggering. The most brutal and unjust “justice” system in the free world.
That American put up with this system is the biggest puzzle. It seems like the only freedom Americans care about is to carry a gun. Any other freedom they are cool with flushing down the toilet.
Sorry for the angry rant, I know there are lots of good and decent people in the US, but how on earth can you stand by year after year and be so chill about the inhumanity of the system?
While I 100% agree about the amount of inhumane policies and do not believe the US (or any other nation) are free.
It is completely untrue that the only freedoms Americans care about is guns, that seems like that because
1. The Mainstream media loves to cover it
2. Guns are a taboo or unusual Topic for many nations
3. Given the US is one of the last if not the last first world nation that has few regulations on owning Auto-Loading guns it is common for other nations to us that as a sign post to express how "backwards" the US is, and virtue signal how much "better" they are in comparison because they outlawed the evil gun
4. The US has made lots of process in the progression of liberty even in my life time. Drugs laws are beginning to loosen, More expansions on Free Speech over the protest of the "hate Speech is not free speech" people, and others
Over all there is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH more work to be done for the cause of liberty, but the idea that Americans only care about guns is simply incorrect or rather incomplete probably based on biased news coverage
virtue signal how much "better" they are in comparison because they outlawed the evil gun
No, it's much more common for some Americans to virtue signal how free they feel by the number and caliber of the guns they own. People in other countries don't hate guns, they just recognize their destructive potential and limit their availability on that basis. To the extent that they think they're better, it's because they have so few episodes of mass or casual murder by comparison.
The US has made lots of process in the progression of liberty even in my life time. Drugs laws are beginning to loosen,
You mean the drug laws that the US instituted in the 70s and then kept ratcheting up penalties on for a couple decades afterwards? If you were born in the 90s I realize it's hard to conceptualize variations in the law prior to that, but you should probably look into the political roots of the drug war and the economics involved in its export.
More expansions on Free Speech over the protest of the "hate Speech is not free speech" people, and others
It's odd that the people who've championed the freedom to express support for genocide under the rubric of free speech have been entirely absent from just about every other free speech cause in recent memory. You might want to broaden your scope a little bit.
Hate probably not, irrationally scared by an inanimate object is a better description.
>>they just recognize their destructive potential and limit their availability on that basis
Same irrational justification is used for all manner of restrictions on liberty, but my rights should not be infringed upon simply because other people do bad things that goes for all rights from free speech, to self defense, to many many many others
>>You mean the drug laws that the US instituted in the 70s and then kept ratcheting up penalties on for a couple decades afterwards?
History of Drugs laws go back far further than just the 70s
>>If you were born in the 90s I realize it's hard to conceptualize variations in the law prior to that
I was not, I predate the 90's by a good margin, and I also know a good deal about American History from our inception. But please continue to try to educate me, I love when people make themselves look foolish saves me the trouble
>>It's odd that the people who've championed the freedom to express support for genocide under the rubric of free speech have been entirely absent from just about every other free speech cause in recent memory. You might want to broaden your scope a little bit
Given you do not know me, or what issues have I have or have not supported it is highly unlikely you know if I was "absent from just about every other free speech cause in recent memory" it is likely I was not given I am a Philosophical Left-Libertarian that values individual liberty over all else including what is best for "society" and I largely reject all forms of collectivism and "the greater good" which is often used as the basis for the suppression of speech and individual liberty
Because when it comes down to it, a lot of these things are supported on a local or state level. HN is California-heavy and reflects the politics of the state (and the Bay Area specifically). As such, the prevailing opinion is likely to be that this is voter suppression/racism in action/terrible policy.
The fact of the matter is though, this is a Texas law, passed by Texan politicians, elected by Texan people, who probably on a general level consider voter fraud to be a bigger problem than voter suppression.
While other parts of the US may not like this kind of thing, they're not in a place to do anything about it. Much like if France wants to pass laws outside of the domain of the EU that Germany doesn't like, Germany can't really do much about it besides writing some news articles.
And to some degree, I'm of the opinion that things are better this way. If other states want to shit on their education systems or fail to invest in public health or (insert other policy here), they'll reap what they sow (which is probably, to some degree, exactly what they want). I'd rather that their decisions and policies by limited to themselves rather than being applied at a federal level to everyone.
>The most brutal and unjust “justice” system in the free world.
I generally agree with you about the state of our criminal justice system, but I think you'll find US freedoms are a mixed bag when compared to the rest of the "free world." If you take a step back from just our criminal justice system, let's compare us to the UK. If you want to be more like them you'll need to restrict abortions to the first trimester, lose your gun rights, lose your free speech rights, lose separation of church and state, still can't vote while in prison, gay marriage is a states rights issue (not available in Northern Ireland), gain some consumer protections around privacy and returns, censor the internet, and heavily weigh immigration towards "ability" based candidates rather than "diversity."
>It seems like the only freedom Americans care about is to carry a gun.
The two rights I hear most about in the US are guns and abortion, but that's because those two are the most consistently under attack. I think free speech and privacy is going to be getting more mainstream attention soon because of what's going on in the tech industry.
I can't quite figure out what the major differentiating factor is between that case and this one where someone intentionally tried to vote twice and just got 2 years of probation: https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper/status/979519186820128768
Isn't the whole point of probation that you're under a microscope and face greater penalties for wrongdoing, in exchange for an early release or bypassing jail for an earlier offense?
HN commenters claim there was no voter fraud in 2016. Voter fraud is discovered and prosecuted. HN commenters then complain that prosecuting the voter fraud they said didn't exist is excessive.
Free and fair elections are what make America great. Sad to see such a lack of respect for that here.
Ideally, you would not allow people who don't have (additionally) Ph.D.'s in either Math or Physics make laws, but that's not how the world currently works.
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.
> “I don’t think I’ll ever vote again,” she told the news outlet after her indictment. “That’s being honest. I’ll never vote again.”
This reminds of an article I read about a city government considering fining people for putting non-recyclables in their recycling containers. If there is a risk of getting punished for doing the right thing and no risk if you don't try to do the right thing, then guess which one I'm choosing.
156 comments
[ 0.17 ms ] story [ 193 ms ] threadI don't think any comment on that site sums it up more than that one.
Is the relevant group predominantly white? Yes, probably. That doesn't make it acceptable to paint all white people with that brush. Imagine if I made a similar comment about black people and shootings.
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 very much about voter intimidation: “I don’t think I’ll ever vote again,” she told the news outlet after her indictment. “That’s being honest. I’ll never vote again.”"
The vast majority of folks in Texas are, IMO, racist, and often in ways that they don't understand. Like, they are often not Klan members. But they do often think that "hispanics" are simultaneous "lazy" and willing to out work them to "take their jobs". This conviction is yet another example of that kind of bigotry... it just seems like a natural, common sense kind of thing to the racists in Texas (note that I didn't say all Texans, thanks).
These are common ideas here among the white folks, who largely are the folks who have the political power to make crazy, fantasy-based laws about voting practices and then equal power to create and enforce these laws. This woman is basically a sacrifice on the alter to reifying those fantasies about voter fraud.
And the people here are indeed very much about retributive, rather than restorative or transformative justice. So on that account, yes, you're totally right: this conviction is 100% about the happy reification of a fantasy that people are out to commit fraud.
This lady is basically a sacrifice to that fantasy:
“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,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said after Ortega was sentenced. ”
So fuck Ken Paxton, and fuck anybody who thinks that this is a reasonable kind of thing.
Is that referring to "Aufheben"?[1]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufheben
Just disgusting.
Incorrect. Private prisons have lobbyists that contaminate the system further upstream to ensure a steady supply of inmates. They do this by lobbying legislators for harsher prison sentences on trivial crimes.
The idea their lobbying efforts have had any effect on punishment guidelines is laughable.
1. The Public in General Votes for "Tough on Crime" politicians, the Public wants "criminal" to pay, they are just to ignorant to understand who "criminals" are as they picture the person is a ski mask robbing and raping them, not some person filling out a government form incorrectly
2. The Police Unions, Guard unions, and various other Non-Profit Groups lobby far far far more effectively than any of the For-profit Government Contractors for very very harsh punishments, and for the creation of new laws and regulations to make even more criminals every year.
Edit: I'm utterly amazed that this comment has been downvoted to silence. Disenfranchising felons — i.e., those who have committed extremely serious crimes — is while somewhat controversial a long-standing practice. The woman in question committed voter fraud by voting without being legally permitted to. This raises some questions. Are felons seriously not told they may not vote? Why not? Is five years a reasonable sentence (I don't really think so in this case, but for someone who commits large-scale voter fraud it might be)? Certainly the woman seems hard-done-by. At the end of the day, though, she did commit a crime under the laws of the state, and while the sentence seems harsh some sentence is necessary.
The max jail time in Texas for first time DWI is 180 days (or as little as 3 days).
[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud...
She voted in a way that was contrary to the law, but it was (likely) a mistake rather than fraud.
In any case, the penalty should be something like losing the right to vote in a single future election, especially lacking any evidence of an organized scheme to corrupt an election.
Because she wasn't legally allowed to vote, and she did. That's voter fraud.
I'm fine with forbidding felons to vote, and of course any law forbidding something has to have penalties. I'm very surprised that the penalty in this case was so high and that it appears to have been a strict-liability crime. Honestly, six months or even less for a first offense would seem reasonable to me — but I'm not a judge.
It's also believable she didn't know this law existed.
Because it comes off as incredibly cruel.
> while the sentence seems harsh some sentence is necessary
Why? Her crime was trying to vote. They caught it and said no. She believed she was legally able to vote.
There is no malice.
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/EL/htm/EL.64.htm
Maybe some other law applies?
It's only meant to provide the public with a false sense of security. "Another scumbag has been locked up, key's been thrown away, you're all safe once again. Enjoy the rest of your evening."
But it's okay because people are easily forgettable. If you have 100 people on a block, and 1 is taken away unjustly, you still have 99 who can quickly forget about that 1, provided they're distracted with enough beer, books, movies and memes.
5 years seems too long though.
Are you being sarcastic? 5 years for voting while on probation is "too long"?? How about:
1. Not preventing people who are in prison from voting
2. Not even having a "probation" time after people have been released from prison; they did their time, they are free again
I think you're mistaken about what probation is.
Probation is part of your time. You're sentenced for a given period of time, and at some point you may be released to serve the rest of that time in the community, on probation.
Their sentence isn't over, and they aren't 'free' while they are on probation. It's part of the original sentence still.
Probation allows people to serve part of their sentences back in the community when they are safe to do so. If you're arguing against having probation you're arguing for longer time spent in prison.
Not necessarily.
edit: It's entirely possible to oppose halfway programs and also advocate for shorter sentencing...
Without the option of probation prison time is not going to increase 1:1 and depending on the ratio total time in prison may actually decrease.
Many small offenses will get you put on probation for ten years. Parole and work release are more often used as alternatives to incarceration.
The main issue here is whether or not people on probation should be allowed to vote. I don't see why they shouldn't and I can't see any justification for putting them in jail if they do. It's absolutely absurd.
The EU (and most modern actual thinking on the issue) says prison primarily lets us force convicts to reform, we can impose structure in their lives, show them how to be good - and in the worst case we keep them there if they refuse to reform.
The British government fought and lost a legal battle to retain the status where prisoners can't legally vote (and many people who are in jail but aren't convicted of any crime don't end up being able to vote even though it's legal). The EU said that's not OK. You can target criminals who e.g. are in prison for vote tampering, but you can't take away people's vote just because they're in prison since they're still citizens.
Yes, but it's a part that is substantially different from imprisonment: you are given a chance to prove yourself (Latin probo, probatio, French prover) to society. It should be as close to the life of a virtuos citizen as possible - and exerting a right to vote, far from being a personal gain, is exactly the type of pro-social behavior we should encourage.
I can understand why she should be reprimanded for violating her probation, but it's revolting that voting during probation could be considered a violation. Something is seriously wrong in a society that does that.
Probation is a "probationary" period that prevents you from going to prison, by substituting it with a period of time where you do classes, have a job, go to school, and/or community service also.
Parole is a period of time after you are released from prison where you are still technically a "prisoner" but you are being let loose to see if you do well in society for a little while, but with extremely high restrictions that can put you back if you sneeze wrong. The federal prison system no longer supports federal parolees.
In my state, Arizona, if you wait 2 years after you are "off paper" (completed parole/probation) you can have your rights restored so you can vote (this is for state felonies, not for federal felonies as far as I know). You can also have your record "sealed" where it still shows you are a felon, but as long as you didn't do anything dangerous(violent) or sexual in nature you can have the court hide what you did. This works out for people that performed financial crimes and are having a hard time getting a job as a cashier or anything to do with money. Or a person who stole a car and is trying to get hired as a driver.
I’m not an expert and I wasn’t there so I don’t know what the actual answer is. With just a cursory knowledge of history though, I don’t think the corruption of this or any system of control is very new at all.
In other words the rehabilitation occurred during and as a result of the criminal act.
Except the sociopath angle - a person who commits crime for fun is quite likely to find another fun crime to commit.
Punishment has three purposes: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. We seem to be suffering from a contemporary bias against retribution [0]. However, these three purposes are intimately connected. When a punishment fits the crime, we communicate the severity of the crime to the criminal. In that way, we help facilitate rehabilitation by making it clear how grave his offense has been. Deterrence is facilitated by the same token. Obviously, these are not absolute measures. For example, a criminal may be unrepentant, but then rehabilitation is not possible. In any case, adequate remorse does not remove the possibility of retribution (though a sincerely remorseful criminal would accept that he deserves commensurate punishment), but it does allow for mercy.
[0] A common confusion here is that retribution entails hatred of the punished. It does not.
And even if they do rehabilitate, our society is not properly set up to help them come back, so the retribution often outweighs the crime. They do their time in prison- but essentially they do time the rest of their life, because when they come back, they aren't treated as if their retribution is complete.
It may be accurate in some cases. But many criminals commit their crimes knowing full well what they are doing, and with no regard for those who are hurt by their actions, and show little or no remorse (unless they think pretending can reduce their sentence).
Now, many are in prison due to unjust laws, selective enforcement, or a flawed prosecution incarcerating the wrong person. But let's not lump those problems together with those who intentionally harm others without remorse.
I think many of us are aware that felons loose their right to vote. I guess I assumed you would be blocked from voting. So I never thought about what the penalty should be. Now that I’ve seen the penalty, I’m appalled.
Frankly, I think we should quit criminalizing everything. The governments responsible for jailing criminals, no-fly lists and a lot of other things. Why not take responsibility for blocking felons from voting?
I don't even see how you can call it fraud.
If that's what the voting public thinks it's for, then for all practical purposes, that's sure as hell what it's actually for.
There's a good documentary about Texas throwing kids in the jail for trivial crimes for multiple years that highlights how retarded the system is (beyond this case), can't find title at the moment grr..
First, the vast majority of states have some type of voting restrictions on felons, with Maine and Vermont being the only exceptions.
Second, some states historically and modernly controlled by the Republican party (e.g. Montana) return the right to vote after release.
Third, among states with harsher restrictions (ending after parole or probation) that are historically OR modernly Republican controlled (ignoring the first point-that many such states are Democrat controlled), the demographics are, in many cases, such that all other races combined could not muster even the perception of a threat to the white, Republican voting bloc.
We learn the rules of math, science, etc, but not our own system?
In this case, they should have simply discarded her ballot and informed her of her status. Of course, disenfranchising any citizen, even convicted felons, is completely unjust, so I would argue they shouldn't have even done that.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/color-b...
Just shockingly bad.
this guy will probably run on his tough on crime crackdown on voter fraud.
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 many family members that work for law enforcement and judges. This is exactly how many of them think.
Edit: I want to amend this a bit. It is something of a noble calling. In a better world, the executive legal function could depend a lot more on legislative and judicial functions to produce a criminal code that served justice better, and just worry about prosecuting what they can according to the law. But in so many cases now, the law is an ass.
They raided his house and found that he made pot butter. They tried to charge him based on the weight of the butter. So his small amount of weed suddenly became a pound and he was facing ridiculous jail time.
But yeah, this judge is probably quite happy to be guarding the integrity of the voting system by tossing a woman who did nothing wrong into jail for 5 fucking years. What a piece of shit.
She was contrite and acknowledged the severity of her crime, we got her sentence reduced! Good guy wins again!
Currently there is a lawsuit to overturn life sentences for juvenile offenders. One of the leaders in that movement is a judge who gave a teenage murderer a life sentence with the comment “I feel the same thing you felt for your victims: nothing.” She doesn’t admit to having changed her mind on harsh punishment in general, but based her change of heart on new scientific beliefs about how morally developed teenagers are.
And "no franchise" does not imply "not human", unless you're saying that every country should allow foreigners to vote in their election or else they're deeming them non-human.
"Ultimately, her vote didn’t even count. Provisional ballots are subject to review, which ultimately led to an investigation of Mason."
And I'm only half joking here. There's a similar case where a white woman purposely tried to impersonate her mother so that she could vote for Trump twice, and she was not charged.
It is also majority targeted towards black voters (despite 18% of voting population, 34% of disenfranchised are black)
Putting it together for me it's clear that police brutality, redistricting and rigid voter disenfranchisement all serve the same purpose. To disenfranchise black voters to the maximum extent possible while remaining constitutional.
This should become a supreme court matter someday.
Surely voting by itself doesn't warrant a 5 year jail sentence
That American put up with this system is the biggest puzzle. It seems like the only freedom Americans care about is to carry a gun. Any other freedom they are cool with flushing down the toilet.
Sorry for the angry rant, I know there are lots of good and decent people in the US, but how on earth can you stand by year after year and be so chill about the inhumanity of the system?
It is completely untrue that the only freedoms Americans care about is guns, that seems like that because
1. The Mainstream media loves to cover it
2. Guns are a taboo or unusual Topic for many nations
3. Given the US is one of the last if not the last first world nation that has few regulations on owning Auto-Loading guns it is common for other nations to us that as a sign post to express how "backwards" the US is, and virtue signal how much "better" they are in comparison because they outlawed the evil gun
4. The US has made lots of process in the progression of liberty even in my life time. Drugs laws are beginning to loosen, More expansions on Free Speech over the protest of the "hate Speech is not free speech" people, and others
Over all there is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH more work to be done for the cause of liberty, but the idea that Americans only care about guns is simply incorrect or rather incomplete probably based on biased news coverage
No, it's much more common for some Americans to virtue signal how free they feel by the number and caliber of the guns they own. People in other countries don't hate guns, they just recognize their destructive potential and limit their availability on that basis. To the extent that they think they're better, it's because they have so few episodes of mass or casual murder by comparison.
The US has made lots of process in the progression of liberty even in my life time. Drugs laws are beginning to loosen,
You mean the drug laws that the US instituted in the 70s and then kept ratcheting up penalties on for a couple decades afterwards? If you were born in the 90s I realize it's hard to conceptualize variations in the law prior to that, but you should probably look into the political roots of the drug war and the economics involved in its export.
More expansions on Free Speech over the protest of the "hate Speech is not free speech" people, and others
It's odd that the people who've championed the freedom to express support for genocide under the rubric of free speech have been entirely absent from just about every other free speech cause in recent memory. You might want to broaden your scope a little bit.
Hate probably not, irrationally scared by an inanimate object is a better description.
>>they just recognize their destructive potential and limit their availability on that basis
Same irrational justification is used for all manner of restrictions on liberty, but my rights should not be infringed upon simply because other people do bad things that goes for all rights from free speech, to self defense, to many many many others
>>You mean the drug laws that the US instituted in the 70s and then kept ratcheting up penalties on for a couple decades afterwards?
History of Drugs laws go back far further than just the 70s
>>If you were born in the 90s I realize it's hard to conceptualize variations in the law prior to that
I was not, I predate the 90's by a good margin, and I also know a good deal about American History from our inception. But please continue to try to educate me, I love when people make themselves look foolish saves me the trouble
>>It's odd that the people who've championed the freedom to express support for genocide under the rubric of free speech have been entirely absent from just about every other free speech cause in recent memory. You might want to broaden your scope a little bit
Given you do not know me, or what issues have I have or have not supported it is highly unlikely you know if I was "absent from just about every other free speech cause in recent memory" it is likely I was not given I am a Philosophical Left-Libertarian that values individual liberty over all else including what is best for "society" and I largely reject all forms of collectivism and "the greater good" which is often used as the basis for the suppression of speech and individual liberty
It's ridiculous.
The fact of the matter is though, this is a Texas law, passed by Texan politicians, elected by Texan people, who probably on a general level consider voter fraud to be a bigger problem than voter suppression.
While other parts of the US may not like this kind of thing, they're not in a place to do anything about it. Much like if France wants to pass laws outside of the domain of the EU that Germany doesn't like, Germany can't really do much about it besides writing some news articles.
And to some degree, I'm of the opinion that things are better this way. If other states want to shit on their education systems or fail to invest in public health or (insert other policy here), they'll reap what they sow (which is probably, to some degree, exactly what they want). I'd rather that their decisions and policies by limited to themselves rather than being applied at a federal level to everyone.
I generally agree with you about the state of our criminal justice system, but I think you'll find US freedoms are a mixed bag when compared to the rest of the "free world." If you take a step back from just our criminal justice system, let's compare us to the UK. If you want to be more like them you'll need to restrict abortions to the first trimester, lose your gun rights, lose your free speech rights, lose separation of church and state, still can't vote while in prison, gay marriage is a states rights issue (not available in Northern Ireland), gain some consumer protections around privacy and returns, censor the internet, and heavily weigh immigration towards "ability" based candidates rather than "diversity."
>It seems like the only freedom Americans care about is to carry a gun.
The two rights I hear most about in the US are guns and abortion, but that's because those two are the most consistently under attack. I think free speech and privacy is going to be getting more mainstream attention soon because of what's going on in the tech industry.
I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.
Free and fair elections are what make America great. Sad to see such a lack of respect for that here.
Hey, you're not on the list, you can't vote.
Hey, you're not on the list, use the computer in the corner to enter your details and see if you're eligible.
Hey, you're not on the list, here is a provisional ballot, we will verify your info and if it clears, your vote will be counted.
You should not get 5 years in prison because the election board is incapable of securing their processes.
The punishment is excessive, but there is a real crime here.
This man deserves to be in prison.
There was a wrong-doing, but the punishment is excessive.
— Sorry maam, it seems like you can't cast a ballot this time due to being on probation. Have a nice day.
oh, wait ....
This reminds of an article I read about a city government considering fining people for putting non-recyclables in their recycling containers. If there is a risk of getting punished for doing the right thing and no risk if you don't try to do the right thing, then guess which one I'm choosing.