Try as we might, we can’t find a way to justify Rosa Maria Ortega’s voting in two elections when, as a legal U.S. resident but not a citizen, she did not have that right.
Try as we might, we can’t find a way to justify Rosa Maria Ortega’s voting in two elections when, as a legal U.S. resident but not a citizen, she did not have that right.
Like many others, we consider Ortega’s eight-year prison sentence handed down by a jury in a Texas courtroom Feb. 9 to be harsh.
We wish the 37-year-old mother of four children ages 12-16 didn’t have to go to prison, but we can’t think of the “right” way to fix the predicament she put herself in.
She is guilty of voter fraud. Under Texas law, her sentence could have been 40 years.
State legislators, who set that sentence for illegal voting in 2011, apparently wanted to be harsh.
If Ortega is the type of offender they had in mind, they overshot the mark. She doesn’t seem to be a threat to society. Brought to the U.S. as an infant, she says she just wanted to vote, to be a part of the world going on around her.
But we don’t have enough history with clear-cut voter fraud cases to say what Ortega’s sentence should be.
A jury heard the evidence in Ortega’s case and decided on eight years. If you respect the jury system, you have to bow to their verdict.
Ortega earlier had turned down a plea bargain for a two-year probated sentence, for fear that it would lead to her deportation.
Her attorney says he is working on an appeal. Yet, even if Ortega were to somehow escape the jury’s sentence, in today’s anti-immigrant environment she still faces the likelihood of deportation.
That’s a shame, but the legal system is full of tragedies.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office assisted Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson’s office in prosecuting Ortega, seemed happy.
The case “sends a message that violators of the state’s election law will be prosecuted to the fullest,” Paxton said about the conviction and sentence.
The lingering question is how many people are inclined to violate that law and thus need to hear that message. President Donald Trump, without proof, says it’s in the millions. Paxton must believe it’s a lot.
So far, it’s one. Rosa Maria Ortega. She doesn’t need to hear it any louder.
— Fort Worth Star-Telegram