Lady avoids jail for voting useless mother’s ballot in Arizona

PHOENIX (AP) — A choose in Phoenix on Friday sentenced a woman o two years of felony probation, fines and community service for voting her dead mother’s poll in Arizona within the 2020 common election.

But the judge rejected a prosecutor’s request that she serve a minimum of 30 days in jail because she lied to investigators and demanded that they hold these committing voter fraud accountable.

The case in opposition to Tracey Kay McKee, 64, is one of only a handful of voter fraud cases from Arizona’s 2020 election that have led to prices, regardless of widespread perception amongst many supporters of former President Donald Trump that there was widespread voter fraud that led to his loss in Arizona and different battleground states.

McKee, who was from Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale but now lives in California, sobbed as she apologized to Maricopa County Superior Courtroom Choose Margaret LaBianca earlier than the decide handed down her sentence. McKee stated that she was grieving over the loss of her mom and had no intent to affect the outcome of the election.

“Your Honor, I wish to apologize,” McKee told LaBianca. “I don’t need to make the excuse for my conduct. What I did was unsuitable and I’m ready to simply accept the implications handed down by the courtroom.”

Each McKee and her mother, Mary Arendt, have been registered Republicans, though she was not asked if she voted for Trump. Arendt died on Oct. 5, 2020, two days earlier than early ballots had been mailed to voters.

Assistant Legal professional Common Todd Lawson played a tape of McKee being interviewed by an investigator with his workplace the place she mentioned there was rampant voter fraud and denied that she had signed and returned her mother’s poll.

“The one option to stop voter fraud is to bodily go in and punch a poll,” McKee advised the investigator. “I mean, voter fraud goes to be prevalent so long as there’s mail-in voting, for certain. I mean, there’s no manner to ensure a fair election.

“And I don’t consider that this was a good election,” she continued. “I do consider there was a number of voter fraud.”

Tom Henze, McKee’s attorney, pointed to dozens of circumstances of voter fraud prosecuted in Arizona over the previous decade, many for comparable violations of voting another person’s poll, and said nobody bought jail time in these instances. He stated agreeing with Lawson that McKee ought to do 30 days jail time would increase constitutional issues of fairness.

“Merely acknowledged, over an extended time period, in voluminous cases, 67 circumstances, no one on this state for comparable circumstances, in comparable context ... no one got jail time,” Henze mentioned. “The court didn’t impose jail time at all.”

But Lawson mentioned jail time was vital as a result of the type of case has changed. While in years past, most instances concerned folks voting in two states because they both lived in or had property in both states, in the 2020 election folks had purchased into Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

“What we’re listening to is voter fraud is on the market,” Lawson told the choose. “And primarily what we’re seeing right here is somebody who says ‘Well, I’m going to commit voter fraud because it’s a big problem and I’m simply going to slide in beneath the radar. And I’m going to do it as a result of everyone else is doing it and I can get away with it.’

“I don’t subscribe to that at all,” he stated. “And I believe the angle you hear within the interview is the attitude that differentiates this case from the opposite cases.”

LaBianca stated that while she agreed with Lawson, ordering jail time would give McKee what she instructed the investigator what she wished: going after people who committed voter fraud.

“And if there were proof that this crime was on the rise, and that heightened deterrence may be known as for, the courtroom would possibly order jail time,” LaBianca mentioned. “However the document here does not show that this crime is on the rise.

“And abhorrent as it might be for someone like the defendant to attack the legitimacy of our free elections with none evidence, besides your own fraud, such statements are usually not unlawful as far as I do know,” the judge continued.