Updated at 7 p.m.: Revised throughout to include additional information.

A Tarrant County woman who voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election while on supervised release will have to go back to federal prison.

Crystal Mason (Tarrant County Sheriff's Department)

A federal judge in Fort Worth ruled Thursday afternoon that Crystal Mason, 43, must spend 10 months behind bars followed by 26 months of supervised release.

Mason, who lives in Rendon in southeastern Tarrant County, was sentenced in March to five years in state prison for illegal voting.

She had been convicted of tax fraud in 2011 and was on supervised release — the federal court system's version of parole — in November 2016 when she voted for Hillary Clinton. Texas law requires that felons complete their entire sentence, including supervised release or parole, before they regain the right to vote.

Mason appealed the illegal-voting case and was free on bond, but federal authorities argued that the conviction violated the terms of her release and that she needed to return to prison on the tax-fraud charge.

When Mason voted in 2016, poll workers did not find her name on a list of registered voters and told her she could fill out a provisional ballot.

She had to sign an affidavit with the ballot affirming that if she was a convicted felon, that she had "completed all of my punishment including any term of incarceration, parole, supervision, period of probation." Mason later said she was never told she wasn't legally allowed to vote and wouldn't have cast a ballot had she known.

Mason later received a letter telling her that her voted hadn't counted, but it didn't say why.

An election worker from her polling place filed a complaint with the Tarrant County district attorney's office, prompting authorities to investigate. Mason was arrested on an illegal-voting charge Feb. 16, 2017.

Lawyers for Mason have argued that attempting to cast a provisional ballot that was rejected does not count as actually voting.

The district attorney's office reiterated in a statement Thursday that it is illegal for someone on supervised release to vote in Texas.

"The DA's office has said that we will not apologize for enforcing the laws of the State of Texas," prosecutor Matt Smid said in a statement. "We believe it is not an 'accidental vote' when the voter drives herself to the polling place and votes after signing a warning against illegal voting and after being warned not to vote by her defense attorney."

But Mason's lawyers called the punishment "draconian."

"It is tantamount to someone being sent to prison because they didn't understand the fine print on some of their mortgage documents," attorney Alison Grinter said at a news conference.

"This is a message that's being sent and being heard loud and clear," said Grinter, who has previously called the case voter intimidation against minorities.

In 2017, a Hispanic Grand Prairie woman in the country legally — but not a U.S. citizen — was sentenced to eight years in prison on two counts of illegal voting. Rosa Ortega testified that she didn't understand the difference between her rights and those of citizens.

Earlier this year, a Tarrant County justice of the peace resigned and pleaded guilty to tampering with government records — forging signatures on a petiton — to get his name on a ballot. Russ Casey, who is white, was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.

Mason is due to report to prison in two weeks.