Texas attorney general arrests man who had been praised for staying in line for 7 hours to vote

Hervis Rogers made national news in March of 2020 for his tenacity as he became the final person to vote at Texas Southern University.

Rogers had been waiting for seven-hours by the time he finally received a ballot at 1:30 a.m. on the Wednesday after Super Tuesday, as Raw Story reported at the time.

"I wanted to get my vote in, voice my opinion," Rogers said proudly. "I wasn't going to let anything stop me, so I waited it out."

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's office is now prosecuting Rogers for allegedly voting illegally, Houston Public Media reports. He has been charged for allegedly voting twice while on probation.

Rogers was arrested in Houston on Wednesday. Even though Houston is in Harris County, where Rogers had stood in line to vote, Paxton's office is prosecuting him in Montgomery County.

Rogers was charged with two counts of illegal voting and had his bond set at $100,000.

The ACLU of Texas, which is representing Rogers, blasted Paxton's handling of the situation.

"Mr. Rogers is being held in jail on an extremely high bail amount that he cannot afford for what amounts to simply attempting to fulfill his civic duty. This is not justice," ACLU of Texas legal director Andre Segura argued.

"It's not the first time such a case has occurred in Texas. In 2016, Crystal Mason, a Tarrant County mother of three, cast a vote while on federal supervised release. She maintains that she did not know about the rules. And when she arrived at the polling place, she told the ACLU that her name wasn't on the list of registered voters, but she was offered a provisional ballot, which she filled out. Six months later, she was arrested," Houston Public Media reproted.

Mason was sentenced to five years in prison.