According to a June 24 indictment from the Texas attorney general’s office, Hervis Earl Rogers, 62, voted in the November 6, 2018, general and special elections and the March 3, 2020, Democratic primary election despite being on felony parole for a 25-year sentence for burglary. Because he was on felony parole, he was ineligible to vote under Texas law, according to the Texas attorney general office.
He was previously convicted of felony burglary charges in 1989 and 1995, according to the indictment.
Rogers did not know that he was voting illegally, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, who is representing Rogers, told CNN Friday.
Andre Segura, ACLU Texas’ legal director, told CNN that Rogers fully believed that he was legally eligible to vote.
“That’s why he went and stood in line for almost seven hours and spoke to CNN about it. He felt he was doing the right thing,” Segura explained. “Where’s the evidence he knew or intended to vote illegally?”
Lawyers are now trying to get an understanding of what the status of his criminal history was at the time he voted.
Segura said he believed that Rogers was no longer on parole as of a few months ago.
“(Attorney General Ken Paxton) wants to create a narrative of widespread voter fraud. We don’t think this is a case that should gotten to this point,” he said, also calling the charges against Rogers “a misuse of resources.”
Segura said this sends a chilling signal that a possible innocent mistake can turn into something this serious.
Rogers was arrested Wednesday, according to his booking sheet, and held at Montgomery County Jail.
The Bail Project said in a statement Saturday that it had posted Rogers’ $100,000 bail.
In the same statement Saturday, Segura said it’s “a relief that Mr. Rogers is no longer in jail.”
“He should not have been arrested and charged in the first place, and certainly should not have been forced to languish in jail on an outrageously high bail amount,” he added.
“Voting restrictions and the expansion of the cash bail system go hand in hand,” Robin Steinberg, the founder and CEO of The Bail Project, said in a statement Saturday.
He called Hervis’s situation “a textbook example of how these systems intersect to undermine our fundamental rights and target minorities.”
Rogers spoke to CNN last year about the long voting lines in Texas. He told CNN at the time that he waited for “a lit bit over six hours” to cast his vote in the Democratic primary, and was not deterred like other voters by the long wait.
“I figured like it was my duty to vote. I wanted to get my vote in to voice my opinion. And I wasn’t going to let nothing stop me. So I waited it out,” Rogers said.
He had been the last person to cast his ballot at his polling center located at Texas Southern University, a historically Black college in Houston, CNN previously reported.
More News
U.S. Lawmakers Visit Taiwan and Vow Support in Face of Chinese Military Drills
Opinion | ‘Accordion Hands’ and ‘Caterpillar Eyebrows’: Trump Meets the Female Gaze
Aid trucks from Egypt enter Gaza, and more news.