I'm pretty conservative but I don't like this one bit.
For one, the sentence seems harsh to me. Comparable to sentences for other crime it seems way out of balance. My guess is they are making her a scapegoat for voter fraud in general. I'd give her a year.
The bigger issue is someone let her vote illegally. In Texas they have a team setup at a table to check and double check your legitimacy as you log in to vote. You move down the line from one person to the next, each checking you are truly qualified to vote. This means multiple people let her pass and it could hardly be an accident. So now we're into the big "C" word - conspiracy which sets off all sorts of dog whistles and makes people freak out.
If you want to go around handing down 8 year sentences you're barking up the wrong tree. Nail the conspirators instead.
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Every election cycle I can remember we see the same exact pattern. A few cases of voter fraud pop up and those in charge of that particular precinct are told, "we're really mad at you, don't do it again". Then they do it again next time around.
No accountability.
If it happened just once a person could brush it off as a few rogue operators. And if it happened twice you'd have some major red flags popping up. But let me repeat - Every election cycle I can remember we see the same exact pattern.
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Let's take this to the next step of accountability - who does the reprimanding? Ah, now we're down to the crux of the matter. The Democratic Party is in charge of doing their own reprimanding. It is the party themselves who are saying, "we're really mad at you, don't do it again". Nod nod wink wink.
There's your problem. No one is watching the watchers.
Now every now and then you'll get a Democratic president who decides to sic his Justice Department dogs on conservative states for "voting irregularities" in the past - like in the 1960's. In their determined pursuit for justice they will slap down these states by assigning monitors at the polls. They've even tried bringing in monitors from the United Nations, which is a whole other can of worms.
But oddly enough Republican presidents never return the favor. I guess they don't want to come off as mean spirited. Who knows, but it's no secret you could send a team into Illinois or California and have a field day rooting out voter fraud. But no, they give them a blank check instead.
There is a lot of blame to go around - a big heaping mountain of blame. I hate to see it all dumped on one single person.
