Raleigh News and ObserverRaleigh News and Observer
Ethan Hyman/ehyman@newsobserver.com

Jones didn't mean to do something wrong. She didn't know.

Four Hoke County residents were charged with felony voter fraud from the 2016 election after ballots were cross-referenced with criminal records. Jones had served time in prison for a felony. She wasn't allowed to vote in North Carolina. When she registered, no one told her that.

Jones told me over the phone that she wanted to vote because she wanted to see change in her neighborhood.

The New Yorker reported that MarkMeadows, the White House chief of staff, voted with the address of a mobile home in Macon County that he had never set foot in. He registered to vote in Virginia before the governor's race, which resulted in him being registered in two states.

The N.C. Board of Elections has not said if they will give the case to prosecutors or not. He has pushed the Big Lie that there was mass voter fraud against the former president.

Jones made a mistake. It appears thatMeadows did not. Jones wants to see the same legal process used to prosecute Black North Carolinians that she used for two years.

She says that he should not be above the law because she was.

The law used to try Jones and the others was written after Reconstruction to make it harder for black people to vote. Jones and other Black people made up close to 70% of the people suspected of voting. John Carella spoke to the court about racism. He says that the prosecutor tried to charge Jones with other election violations, like signing a false statement and saying she voted in a different county than she was living in. After two years of legal battles, she entered an Alford plea for a crime and was given six months of supervision.

There is an underlying message when conservatives repeat the Big Lie: it is not just that Democrats committed voter fraud, but that voters of color did. When you think about the voter suppression bills in state legislatures last year that would have put even more burden on voters of color, it's clear.

Race was a factor in the case. The public record was dragged into the picture when defendants made false allegations about the group committing election fraud. The defendants said that since Black residents were committing voter fraud, they had to do the same.

Carella doesn't necessarily share Jones' desire to see Meadows prosecuted.

He says that the injustice of all this is not the point.

He sees it as proof that the felony voting law that condemned Jones needs to be completely reexamined. Half of the states don't do anything about revocation of someone's right to vote when they are in prison. The state of North Carolina could follow along. The state allows voting for people who have been convicted of a crime.

Jones is doing better after her voter fraud case. She doesn't mind speaking about her mistake and the aftermath of it, it's the way to affect change.

She says she still has a voice because she voted.

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